In response to 'to think some mumsnetters have a problem with blackwomen

[Fatshedra]

MN could make a rule that all threads about people in the limelight that the poster hasn't met in their life and is never going to meet in their life and is therefore making judgements on on the strength of their race, what they read about them or their family in the DM, some other spurious feeling or nonsensical judgement of them, should be moved to a people in the limelight thread which sensible people who don't have inexplicable dislike or hatred can easily ignore. So all the biased posters can stew on one thread out of the way of more rational users.

I'm really disappointed Vllads thread was deleted. I enjoyed it and the discussion.

I am white so I have no gripe here but I could not help noticing that responses on MN threads are harsher when black women/black issues are involved.

Hello @Fatshedra thanks for your comments, and thanks to everyone else who added their thoughts here. Moving all the problematic posters to a quiet corner of the site sounds tempting but they'd find their way back to AIBU eventually - and, in truth, we don't want that kind of thing anywhere on the site. We frequently suspend posters who appear to have a specific agenda of dogwhistle racism.

It's frustrating, we know, when a thread which otherwise is an interesting discussion ends up being deleted. We agree that users should be of course be able to have a sensible and rational discussion about race and we'll be alert to any attempts to derail these discussions.

We're also sorry for the offence and annoyance caused by the term 'bun fight' in this case - we'll be mindful of that and our overall approach in the future.

@YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet I appreciate your considered response. And I know that controversial threads, as it were, are prone to slipping into breaking talk guidelines territory. But as a POC on your site... and I post a lot more than I care to admit... I think it is unreasonable that we can't just have a sensible discussion about race. A lot of threads are inflammatory when it comes to black/mixed women.

I have no issue if people dislike a person of colour just because they don't take to them or whatever. But when posts describing black women as 'pushy', 'uppity' 'angry' these are all, like it or not, centred in racism as they're typical tropes. So I find it often times demoralising that if I start a thread to query this it's deleted, but a post using the term 'uppity' doesn't apparently break talk guidelines.

A lot of people shout down the discussion by declaring that 'everything is racist' and no-one can 'say anything anymore' for fear of being racist. But the more you shut down these discussions the more you give racists the green light and shut down those of us who are genuinely trying to explain why something seemingly innocuous is couched in racism. I admit it's a difficult balance, but it doesn't help if you delete such threads and airily declare them to be 'bun-fights' or 'TAATs'.

@VladmirsPoutine - thank you, your comments are really helpful and we're sorry we've not been responsive enough in the past. We agree it's a difficult balance but we will try to get it right.

I did say 'people in the limelight' so it doesn't have to be about racism, or only about women.
Surely having a topic headed 'people in the limelight' might move some of the ridiculous comments to an easier to ignore area.

There might be interesting debate about some 'people in the limelight' but so much is unqualified nastiness I do feel it would do the MN site a favour if they were kept more in one place .

If they turned up elsewhere it could be suggested they are moved.

I've just reread my post from earlier and realised it could be misconstrued! I'm in support of OP and VladimirsPoutine. My point about of people taking offence is more the "reverse racism" type. Basically people claiming offence as an attack on being called out for racism.

@VladmirsPoutine Your post above was excellent. I'm afraid I don't hold out much hope.