The following was written by People of Color on Drama's mod team, and the rest of the mods stand with them.

Previous posts on the subject: A Very Important Drama Gazelle: Bernie Sanders and #BlackLivesMatter, Stop posting about Bernie and BLM.

We need to talk.

Well, actually, no. We don’t need to talk. You need to listen. We gave you an avenue to talk, and that ended up being not productive, so in this case we’re telling you all to be quiet and listen.

It’s sort of ridiculous, having to post yet another mod notice about casual bigotry on this subreddit in the span of about a week. It’s like we’re constantly trying to hit the head of a nail, and yet constantly missing. Yet we can’t let this go, because this is what our subreddit is meant to do: call out people for casual bigotry and discuss how to do better.

So far, we’ve been calling out the casual bigotry… but instead of asking how we can do better, we’re digging trenches and otherwise refusing to budge. Instead of listening when being called out, we’re getting users commenting on how they did not like being called racist, repeating the same actions and behaviours that were being called out in previous posts, and otherwise stubbornly assert that BLM was inherently in the wrong and that Sanders was being silenced.

It is a never-ending series of frustrations. After all, Drama is a progressive community, and we’re supposed to be better than this. In the past several days, however, Drama has become less of a safe place for people of color, and has instead become more akin to a typical default subreddit, complete with casual and unconscious racism.

We can see the comments now. “But I’m not racist! My comments had nothing to do with racism!” We know you don’t think you’re being racist. We just spent an entire moderator announcement arguing and fighting over that point, so we don’t really need to hear it yet again. Right now, it really doesn’t matter whether you think your comments were subtly racist or whether you believe that you personally do not espouse racism. Your comments were racist, and you were unconsciously being racist. Arguing that this doesn’t apply to you will not help, and we do not want to hear it.

Whether you intended to be racist or not, the issue is that Drama is racist.

Has the subreddit always been racist? Has the subreddit gradually become more racist over time, as the community grows larger? Is this something we’ve only begun to notice now? We don’t know, and in truth, we don’t really care to know. The question of whether this is a recent development or whether it has always been this way does not matter. What matters is that, at this current moment, this subreddit is racist.

Oh, it’s not overt racism laden with racial slurs and “anti-racist is codeword for anti-white”. You’re pretty good at saying that’s not okay, and call people out on that kind of behavior. Instead, it’s the little things, the unsaid implications, and the outright prioritizing of a white man’s voice over black people’s voices. It’s the indignity expressed on behalf of all white allies everywhere because one white ally got interrupted on a stage in Seattle. It’s the comments complaining that BLM should have interrupted Republicans, instead of Democrats. It’s the assertion that BLM should have interrupted a different rally, and not this particular one that happens to be related to your pet issues. It’s the idea that putting pressure on allies is bad even though it has been a staple of progressive politics for years now. It’s the moderation reports accusing moderators of being too emotional, too political, too toxic, too personal, and too angry when the moderators are calling out casual racism in the comments. It’s all of these and yet more, contributing to a racial hierarchy that favors white voices over the voices of people of color, and which seeks to silent the latter.

Drama, whether intended to be or not, is racist. And that needs to change.

Calling out your fellow allies in the fight for social justice is hard, because it’s generally assumed that we already know this type of thing. Additionally, certain voices are valued more than others, consciously or not. Many of us moderators are people of color, and it’s even harder to speak as a marginalized voice, because we have all been raised and socialized to act like our oppressors, to speak like our oppressors, and to not openly challenge our oppressors, lest we be seen as uppity, divisive, “rocking the boat”, and ungrateful. In the case of social justice, many people value the voice of the privileged ally over the voice of the oppressed person. From comments such as “I support feminism, but not all men do x” to “I think generalizing cis people is unhelpful”, such statements help to perpetuate injustice and silencing.

The unsaid implication is “I support the concept of BlackLivesMatter, but I wish the black activists who interrupted Sanders were not so rude about it” and “I am not racist, but I think it is problematic that the black people decide to call out the white person speaking on their behalf.”

This is casual racism. And this is not okay.

This is not a discussion for you to assert that you are not racist and that you are personally offended. As it has already been said, we do not care. If you want to assert that you are personally offended by this post and that this does not apply to you, you are part of the problem. And we are not accepting this anymore.

This thread will be locked. We will not be accepting any comments. As such, AutoModerator will be removing all replies to this post.