Notices by Ro (are0h@ubiqueros.com)

Morning, you magnificent bastards.

We're in the final stretch of 2023, and as I've said previously, this instance is shutting down as a transition to my next effort.

My new home is over at h.i., so head over there to keep up with all of my shenanigans and updates.

If you have questions, comments, well wishes, etc, send them to the new spot because this account is pretty much defunct.

It was fun, but now it's time for the next thing.

Hey, hey, just another quick reminder that this instance is being shut down at the end of the year as I move over to my new home at h.i. social.

This place will always be special as it was my home after returning to the fedi after being away for a while, but with the explosion of interest in #TheBadSpace (ha, both excellent and racist) and the continuing development of #Fipamo, it's just time to move on and get a bit more organized for the new year and provide a space for the community around these projects to have a home.

It's been a wild year, to say the least, but in the end, it has shown me what I need to do.

And I'm pretty excited about it.

@cafkafk@akko.wtf There was actually no evidence I was targeting anyone, so no.

And what I actually said was the two groups of people I have been harassed and attacked by the most have been white trans women and white men, with the ideological adherence to whiteness and anti-Blackness.

So, in reality you are demonstrating the behavior I am talking about because you'd rather believe people with zero evidence of what they accuse me of and then run like a coward before doing the decent thing and letting me respond.

But I appreciate you showing how racism works in real time, so thank you.

There's this view on the fedi that because people don't outright use slurs, they can't be racist or anti-Black, which is absurd, but people cling to this falsehood in an attempt to justify hateful behavior.

But this context speaks to how insidious whiteness operates in the fedi.

No, most people won't call me a slur, but they will ignore a boundary I've set.

The chances of one using a historically derogatory term of Black folk is low in the fedi, but people will frame me as an Angry Black Guy, a historic trope used against Black persons to justify injustice to try and invalidate my response to being attacked and abused in this space.

Nah, most people who style themselves as PROGRESSIVE won't use the language of hate to express themselves, but they will show deference and understanding to other white people while engaging in hostile and bad faith exchange with Black folks under the guise of 'discourse.'

To be honest, I respect bigots who use slurs because they are clear about where they stand. I know where to put that.

But there are a lot of people who engage in anti-Black behavior while having all of the acronyms and flags in their bios.

This is why I pay attention to behavior because that always tells what a person is really about.

@eaton@phire.place The tuning of progression with the story's progress was a standout feature.

You never feel overpowered, but you get to a point where you're not afraid of a fight where you are at a disadvantage.

I loved that feeling.

Control is underappreciated. I went in not expecting much because I got it on sale and was blown away people weren't talking about it more.

It's such a brutal and weird and fantastic spectacle.

I've been quiet for the past week because I've been on the road. I'll talk about where I'm going later, but I've decided to leave the US because my growing disgust with this country has been a dominant theme for the last few months.

I lived overseas a few years ago, and that experience really put how despicable the US is in sharp focus. When I came back to deal with family issues, I knew I wouldn't stay, but I decided to live in Cali for a bit and got comfortable.

This past year has made it clear that I need to escape the US for a while. Between the absurdity of finding employment, unprovoked violence from law enforcement, and now, white vigilantes carrying hate crimes every other day, I need to get back to my plan of leaving the US for good.

I love traveling, so being back out on the road has been refreshing, but the larger context is that I can't ignore my growing repugnance with the place of my birth.

So I'm making some changes.

And to be frank, I've been looking into plausible ways to give up my US citizenship.

I've been checked out from the American experience for a while, and I don't want anything to do with how this country operates, especially when it comes to using my tax money to 1. violently oppress people who look like me and 2. contribute to constant conflicts globally that terrorize Black and Brown people.

I'll never deny that I'm an American by birth, but I've considered myself a citizen of the world for a long time, and that perspective is just directly opposed to what the US is and has been since it was created.

But I know I just need to cut the cord with the US.

This has never been a healthy place for me, and I want to give people like me options for their well-being.

I don't want anything to do with the fiction of the American Dream.

I'm absolutely nauseated by the way hate and discrimination have been normalized to the point people in the US really believe 'that's just how people are.'

I hate having to constantly justify myself to people who do not have a fourth of the talent and experience I have simply because I do not look like them.

I detest the idea of my resources being used to further the murderous US regime across the globe.

I'm tired of being disgusted all the time.

The reality for Black and Brow people on the web is that no matter what tools we use, from Facebook to Twitter to Instagram, etc, we are constantly targets for racists. To exist online is to be a target for hateful people because, well, cruel people identify themselves by whom they can torment.

These centralized platforms have often been sympathetic to anti-Blackness, whether it be for profit or culturally, so Black and Brown people have had to carve out communities from granite to make space for us there. Black Twitter, for example, is an example of how successful we are at making communities in adverse conditions. We know how to create.

One of the main reasons I am still on the fedi is because it provides us with a unique opportunity to build independent networks with social media capabilities but is not subjected to the whims of people who empathize with bigots.

We can make connected communities that are not subject to the policies made by people who prioritize capitalism and hateful rage as engagement tools.

For me, that is worth fighting for. That idea is transformative.

We just have to build the right tools to realize it.

If bigots could mind their business, there would be no need for #TheBadSpace or blocklists at all.

But here we are.

LOL, let me state this clearly.

If the only time you have a problem with people screenshotting bigotry and when Black and Brown folks use the fediblock tag to identify bad actors, *you are a racist.*

People screenshot my timeline every got damn day, but it's rarely brought up as 'creepy' or 'weird.' No one talks about how people sit on my timeline looking for any reason to harass me.

You're just broadcasting you don't like Black and Brown folks protecting ourselves.

It's always been bizarre how white people obsess over us and our spaces while claiming their spaces are better.

If they genuinely believed that they would leave us alone.

But that's the insanity of whiteness. One who identifies with that ideology can't even be honest with themselves.

If we're being honest, many people with "Black Lives Matter" and "anti-fascist" in their bios are only doing that because they are trying to build followings here that they couldn't on centralized platforms.

So they are adopting language they think will make them popular without knowing what that means.

And their behavior reflects this.

The fedi doesn't belong to you. The fedi doesn't belong to me. That's the beauty of it.

We can make any community and interact with whomever we want. This space enables us to curate whatever kind of experience we want without being tormented by the shifting policies of centralized platforms that want to exploit people.

When people complain about blocklists, they are just broadcasting they want to take the place of centralized platforms in this space and define your experience, ignoring what you want. They want to be the central authority on how you use this space.

That's not advocating for an open web. That's advocating for entitlement.

Because a truly open web includes respecting people's choices to have the space they want.

But I will say techDOTlgbt provides a beautiful case study for #TheBadSpace.

The community is isolating that instance, not me. I did not add them to the database. That's now how the site works.

Instances are seeing their continued deplorable behavior and reacting accordingly.

It's a great example of independent communities working together to identify bad actors.

Which is why I built it.

https://tweaking.thebad.space/location/e840d57b-f424-4c1c-9cb2-355cbefed252

Be wary of any admin or mod that speaks ill of .art.

They've been doing good work since the PV days when no one cared about moderation and boundaries and have one of the most battle-tested teams on the fedi.

They don't get every decision right but they work hard to be transparent and own their mistakes because they care about their members.

Everyone should be open to criticism, but pay attention to who has a problem with .art’s boundaries and moderation.

Because they've been doing this work for a while.

Full stop. If you can only recognize the humanity and agency of people like you, you're just a bigot.

Period.

Let's hammer this point home.

If one says that standing up for the humanity of innocent Palestinians who have nothing to do with this conflict is 'antisemitic,' then that person is also saying dehumanizing Black and Brown people is a core trait of being Jewish.

And that's not true.

They're just a white supremacist. They think atrocities committed against Black and Brown bodies are fine.

Just like any common racist.

Again, if you cannot acknowledge what is happening in Gaza is wrong, I am not interested in hearing your justifications and denials.

Recognizing the humanity of one group of people while completely dismissing another makes you a bigot.

And everyone on the fedi knows how I feel about bigots.