Bluesky had a bad week as a company in relation to its community of users but a thing that is totally alive there rn and really not here is Black journalists and writers and internet people having non-101 conversations about rhetoric and networks at full speed without being hit with hundreds of identical replies about not seeing race or being asked to prove the existence of racism.

I hope fedi people who care about this stuff are paying attention and not just smugly writing them off.

@kissane so, there are two things here.

One is technical. We have an Oort cloud of troll instances set up specifically for harassment and abuse. They find Black people (among others) on poorly-moderated instances and send them threatening images or texts. When those Black people rightfully complain, people on better-moderated instances have the trolls blocked and literally can't see the abusive content.

The other is the normal willful blindness to oppression that privileged people have.

@kissane the first one has got to feel like the most insane gaslighting ever. When you've just received a death threat, having someone say, "I've never seen any racism here, everyone seems really nice" must be so infuriating.

@kissane I think there are some basic steps that can be taken.

1) joinmastodon.org needs to delist servers that don't actively update their domain blocklists. These servers simply aren't safe for Black people or practically anyone else.

2) We need more Black-focused and -run instances.

3) We need a Black-run portal like joinmastodon to help new people find safe spaces and good connections.