To think MN has a race problem and it’s getting worse

[MovingOutofZone2]

Posters say incredibly offensive, often outright racist things and MN lets them stand as it’s a ‘difference of opinion’ and that’s fine. Other posters complain about this and MN deletes said complaints as they are ‘personal attacks’ and that isn’t fine.

Then we have mods wandering in and going ‘let’s have peace and love’, as though ‘both sides’ need to calm down. No, we need to stop placating racists.

I’m not going to give examples as this will get taken down as a TAAT, but I cannot be the only person to be fed up with all this. MN needs to do something about the racism, race baiting and general cultural ignorance. Unless the site is ONLY meant to cater to white people and, even then, I firmly believe that most posters of any race don’t want to see all that ugliness.

It’s getting to the stage where, as a Black person, I’m steeling myself before I log on. And knowing that half the time I report a comment, I won’t even get a token acknowledgement. This isn’t right. It wasn’t always like this.

I agree, OP. I also suspect it's not an "organic" change, i.e. from a gradual shift in attitude.

I can't say anything for definite of course, but I'm starting to notice a lot of phrases, words and "opinions" showing up all over MN which are very commonly found among alt-right recruiter rhetoric.

A lot of "don't you miss the past when we were freer and didn't have to worry about offending people" and "it's not bigotry to state the FACT that [complete unfounded lies about a target group being a danger to your children]".

All very harmless, all very cutesy, until it starts getting into people's heads. And it will. We need to be vigilant.

@InPraiseOfBacchus I agree there does seem to be an infusion of alt-right rhetoric. Thankfully, abortion rights are done and dusted, or religion, but there are still areas of liberalism that are up for grabs.

Hi, everyone. We're just posting to say that we've had many reports about the tone and direction of this thread and we'd like to enlist your help to keep things on track. We've removed some posts and will go through the rest of the reports now. If you're not familiar with our Talk guidelines, please do take a look.

Black people exchanging stories about the way they are treated by white people because of the colour of their skin is a legitimate and necessary discussion and we take a dim view of posts clearly intended to shut this down. Denying that colour exists could also imply that racism doesn't exist and posters, rightfully, find this kind of sentiment frustrating.

We absolutely do not tolerate racism or any form of hate speech on Mumsnet and will always delete such posts when they're reported to us - so please do.

My comments aren't specifically about trans issues. Just a suggestion that the demographic of MN users might have changed. So SOME of the people who have come here to discuss trans issues might also be the kind of people who are racist / sexist / xenophobic / homophobic etc. This is NOT saying that if you want to discuss trans issues, then you are racist etc. But it is suggesting that there are some people who are transphobic and are also racist etc. And they are attracted to MN

Indeed I'm no royalist but the endless bitchy threads about Meghan and Harry are tiresome,s even holding g her husband's hand at his Grandmothers funeral was wrong apparently ( even though Mike and Zara Tindalll were also holding hands )

I agree

MN is a business firstly not a place for support racist threads will often get a huge amount of posts more posts generates more money for MN

i reported twice a recent thread where posters where blatantly posting nasty remarks about people with disabilities and the op had never posted before the response from mn was they were monitoring the thread. It was gaining a lot of posts so unsurprisingly MN did not pull it

Many on here sneer at the DM and rightly so but also those that read the DM MN does not operate that differently

Thank you @YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet

I think this is true.
I have a health problem; if I told you what it was you probably vaguely know what my symptoms might be but don’t have any detailed knowledge.
Why would you go out and educate yourself about the condition unless it directly affected you or a family member/friend etc?
Most people are quite understandably tied up in their own lives.

'Lived experience' is tricky because it's inherently subjective.

Outside of any question of specific sort of predudice or discrimination relating to protected characteristics like race or sex, I'm sure everyone has taken something the wrong way, read more into something than was intended, been oversensitive or paranoid to the point that they attribute something incorrectly.

Stating that you've been treated a certain way because of a characteristic you can't help isn't always meaningful or accurate.

If I think a male mechanic is condescending to me because I'm a woman, I might be right. It might be that I've failed to maintain something to the point of being dangerous and he needs to impress that upon me. It might be that he's just in a bad mood.

If I think a shop assistant didn't offer me a bag because I'm black, having offered one to the white person before me, I might be right. It might because I already have a large bag and am buying a small item. It might because she's in a rush because she should be on her break.

You can't categorically say why someone has treated you a certain way. It is most likely to be about them, or because they don't like your attitude or behaviour, which isn't anything to do with your age, sex, identity, skin colour etc.

@HRTQueen our moderation decisions are based on our Talk guidelines along with the thoughts and feelings of MNers. We've seen the 'leaving it up for clicks' suggestion before but this is never a consideration when it comes to deleting threads or posts. And if you were to look at it in a cold, 'non human' way, leaving hate speech to stand would only ever be damaging for a business.

You can't categorically say why someone has treated you a certain way. It is most likely to be about them, or because they don't like your attitude or behaviour, which isn't anything to do with your age, sex, identity, skin colour etc.

True, but if it happens to you a lot, then you will know a certain % of those incidents are to do with your age, sex, identity, skin colour.

You've only got to see some of the videos on You Tube to see how people experience the world differently to others and are treated differently compared to how you might be treated in the same situation.

’You can't categorically say why someone has treated you a certain way’

’It is most likely to be about them, or because they don't like your attitude or behaviour’

Apparently you can say!

No, I said 'likely', which isn't certain, definite or categorical.

Even the MNHQ post says 'Black people exchanging stories about the way they are treated by white people because of the colour of their skin is a legitimate'.

I'm saying you it is not necessarily correct to say you know why you've been treated that way.

But you can say it’s ‘likely’ that it’s not about race, whereas the people who were actually there apparently can’t say that it’s ‘likely’ that it was.

I haven’t read the whole thread yet, but I’m shocked reading some posts.
I whole heartedly agree with post above. I’ve had to change my name twice after being ganged up upon by MNers for trying to introduce a little reason into clearly transphobic and homophobic hate discussions. I don’t know how these are allowed to persist, where people get group advice on how to gang up on teachers, attack curricula and schools to educating their kids. When this hatefulness is accepted, it swings the door wide and welcoming for other hate.

Generally, if I see a thread about race/trans/gay, I don’t go in because I know it will be full of bigots.

Sometimes I wonder what people would think if they suddenly were able to 'change identity' and then experience the world. I think it would be an eye opener for many in the way they were treated.

For some, they would face better treatment. Others would face worse.

Pro-female is not anti-trans.

Pro-black is not anti-white.

Its depressing. I would also say that unfortunately it reflects wider society.

Too many people hide their racism in public and spout their prejudices in private. An anonymous forum counts as private to them.

And here is a woman hating, misogynistic comment, just balance things out a bit.

All my friends are gender critical, none of us are racist, sexist, xenophobic or homophobic. We’re not all white or British, 2 are a gay couple....still gender critical...we are very concerned with women’s safe spaces, fairness in women’s sports and the protection of children. A couple of us have girls who are autistic and are extremely concerned about trans ideology being forced upon them and the disproportionate number of autistic girls struggling with gender identity. That’s not transphobic but many people want to say it is. 🤷🏻‍♀️It’s made out that people that think like us right wing extremists. With us, it couldn’t be further from the truth, were about as left wing as you can get and as many of us are vegan, homeschooling, anything goes hippie types (others description of us), it’s ironic to be classed as right wing just because we don’t buy into the idea of gender.

But let’s not derail, this thread is specifically about racism. There’s plenty of it on here daily, the thread about Prince Williams godmother was full of it. And full of people telling others that it was just curiosity, she was just interested etc. You only have to advance search some users on here if there’s any doubt. Although we can’t bring up other threads, can we mumsnet. 🤔

I know one of the posters on that thread in real life, she does the covert racism thing on here, denying its racism....she lives in my village and is openly racist, but there’s a lot of racism here so I guess she feels safe. I’m not liked because I questioned her and the other village racists views on refugees and on a black family that viewed a house here in our village and the terms they used to describe them. I hope she reads this and recognises herself because I’ve recognised her from posts she’s made. 👀 I gave no doubt that other posters are just like her.

I think there's a huge difficulty in 'being there' or 'not being there' too.

Someone outside a conflict is often better placed to diffuse it or mediate. Looking at a scenario objectively or in an unbiased way is easier when it's not happening to you, and therefore to do on someone else's behalf. I understand this isn't always asked for, but am thinking about where perceived 'denial of lived experience' stems from.

The topic of racially motivated microaggression (obviously) isn't typically opened up in the AIBU forum, but the premise of someone telling you that actually, they are reacting emotionally, or with past trauma at the forefront and over extending ideas, is common.

It's easy to wonder if the ways you're treated by others is because you're older/younger than them, or there's an imbalance in power due to sex or race, but behaviour usually does indicate more about the individual carrying it out, than the person they're dealing with.

Yes. It indicates they’re a racist.

Or they they're angry, preoccupied, tired, and not really even thinking about you.