Discussion Gaslighting about racism
Discussion Gaslighting about racism
I hate even more how I can't help but start to distrust other women in general at seeing so many women express such intense feral loathing and disdain for other demographics of women and apply racist generalizations in such shady ways.
Honestly seeing how certain white women behave on "feminist" sites without being banned and seeing how enough other white women, white Jewish women, and women of other races, just go along with the racism without calling it out for the sake of having a safe space for them to vent and hate on other groups (they start out saying they only hate the men, but rarely push back when a few others redirect the hate towards other women; only a few regularly try and I'm grateful for them but feel bad that they only are burning themselves out too. — It shouldn't be controversial for mods/admins to just remove/warn the vaguely racist comments from the women who don't know better yet and to start scolding, temporary-banning/suspending, or permanently banning (even if it's just circle-wide bans), the site users who are repeatedly causing the same pattern of off-topic racist derailing without stopping or apologizing no matter if they identify as feminists or gender-critical or even if they are popular, well-liked/respected, or have other good posts, and it frustrates me that admins/mods don't seem to feel that way, and that even if the mods do see it, they seem to not have the power to make that judgment to enact circle-wide bans, so idk what the point of a "feminist" site for "all" women is when it's set up like that)... I actually can't even judge or blame some of the harsh-sounding women I've seen on Reddit, LipstickAlley and other spaces whose words I've felt hurt by when I've seen some make generalized statements (or use misogynistic slurs) expressing anger, dislike, hate, distrust, or animosity at all non-black women, or all white women, or all women from my (non-white) race for whatever reason, because it's hard to believe that female solidarity could ever be possible when there's always at least a few nasty hateful privileged women who try to use their privileges to rile up and spread hate towards other oppressed groups of women.
I had sometimes felt bad about some of the posts/comments with racism against my race I had seen on LipstickAlley sometimes by a small handful of women but every time I see on certain supposed feminist websites like Ovarit or Vexxed all the hate, resentment, scorn, loathing, and lack of understanding, sympathy, and empathy that so many white women and some of the prominent Jewish members seem to hold against Muslim women, Middle-Eastern women, Black women, South Asian women, etc... I just fully get why so many Black women specifically have expressed not trusting other non-Black women anymore because of how many times they've been burnt by that trust. And while I've only rarely seen any other demographics of women chatting online amongst each other about racism they've experienced from other groups from women, I'm sure that many of them have been similarly burned by women from all other races. And I just can't help but wonder sometimes what is the point of even trying to work towards any unity for women across nations and across races when our efforts keep getting derailed by the actions and hate of a few riling up so many others holding a lot of latent hate within themselves. I keep feeling constantly discouraged, and can't help but think that we're maybe all better off on our own, because any solidarity that women of color show towards each other or white women often won't get returned as much and will end up twisted somehow anyway and will drain our energy and make us feel resentful for it.
But then I obviously stop and think about all rarer genuinely kind women of all races that I've come across, and I think to myself again that it's wrong to generalize and give up female solidarity as a lost cause just because of a few nasty racist women. But idk. It's just demoralizing to have to tip-toe around the oversensitive racist white women who cry 'racism' themselves and try to get you censored for pointing out their racism even when you've tried to be an ally to them, because the accusation of possibly being a racist is more upsetting to some white women than the consideration of them actually having taken part in alienating, marginalizing, and silencing other women of color with their choice of words having come off as "racist". It's always considered more important for any women of color to apologize for having hurt the feelings of any white women with the "racism" accusations, than for those white women who said or agreed with those racist statements to hear out and learn from why some women of color perceived them as racist in the first place
I just feel like everything is pointless sometimes, and honestly having to chat "civilly" with racists who loathe me for my race just makes me feel worthless. It doesn't feel worth attempting to engage in "gender critical" or "radical feminist" or "feminist" spaces a lot of the time. I hate Islam because i hate how it hurts Muslim women, and ex-Muslim women, and the non-Muslim women who grow up around the religion. The racists hate Islam because they hate Muslims, including the women. No productive conversations can be held about Islam when everything is derailed into advocating for deporting colored women from the "civilized West" nonstop all the freaking time.
I feel so gaslit on certain "feminist sites" — not this one, obviously. I love Clovenhooves — when i point out racism from other women who fake being "feminist" yet only my comments get removed in a thread when other equally off-topic, derailing comments don't because of the bias that others hold. And i get told to stop vague-posting, and honestly I do get that... but if my own reports are ignored and if moderators really don't actually read and consider the other derailing comments in a thread as "derailing" or as verging towards racism, if not already having crossed that line... then I'm genuinely not sure how to explain it. And it makes me constantly question on whether I'm just going crazy and imagining the racism after after all, and then I end up feeling too demoralized and worthless to even bother pointing out racism and questioning if we deserve it. And tbh I think I'm just posting this rant honestly because on Vexxed, i keep feeling obligated to comment that "racism is bad", but my self-esteem is at the point that I'm questioning it again, and I guess I'm posting here just because I really would like to hear it from other actually feminist women here that "racism is bad" enough times so that maybe I can start to believe that again.
I hate that engaging on a white-supremacist-leaning "feminist" site constantly brings me to question whether or not racism is bad or whether people like me specifically are deserving of racism. Since I obviously do know that other groups and races absolutely don't deserve racism, but I never actually end up hearing it about my race and I'm not sure if I'd believe it at this point even if someone said that, since the online consensus on Vexxed/Ovarit and LipstickAlley alike sometimes feels as if there is one race that does deserve all the hate. I suppose i am posting here for some reassurance that all racism is bad and isn't justified, even if I'm not capable of believing it yet.
Funny how engaging on gender-critical spaces had been constantly making me feel this way about my race. It's even funnier how white-supremacists have successfully infiltrated GC spaces for so long without many "feminists" even realizing.
And I'm just so frustrated tbh because the main reasons that I want so badly for a women-centered feminist/gender-critical radfem-run radfem-modded site for all women and girls to exist is because there's genuinely SO much potential for this idea to lead to all sorts of productive conversations and collaborations, and to lead to all sorts of connections both IRL and online, and to benefit women and girls all around the world socially, professionally, academically, mentally, emotionally, and so many other ways because women and girls would have a safe space not just for venting, supporting each other, spreading awareness of issues, and building solidarity, or asking for advice on life, relationships, family, careers, academics, etc, but also they can find likeminded women and girls to work on short-term and long-term projects with that benefit their local and global communities, and share resources and knowledge, and motivate & encourage so many other girls and women who lurk that sort of feminist women-centered site. And I feel like I'd know how to recruit and build up each different "circle" and space for all sorts of different important/serioius and lighthearted/frivolous sorts of topics and help recruit, screen, and find the right kind of inclusive, sensitive female moderators for each circle (and enough of them) at a reasonable enough and efficient pace, and I literally have continued to offer to volunteer to do this for free without any long-term expectations and with me making it clear that I was willing to help for as long as I was needed and then step down and pass over any mod powers or whatever as soon as I was asked to, so it's not even like there would be much risk in trusting me if I'm too much of a random unknown person or not trusted enough to mod. But I literally just wanted an active, supportive, beneficial feminist women-centered site run by radfems to just exist, and I was willing to volunteer as much time, effort, and energy as it took to try to help build that sort of community, but it's hard to not question the goals of Vexxed as a site as it currently exists because it's obviously not set up in such a way that would be beneficial or productive for any of the women doing IRL activism work, advocacy work, outreach efforts to women & girls, building up female professional networks and organizations to support women & girls, etc. It's useless for anything anything productive to connect women and girls IRL or even online for their shares interests and hobbies, because there's too much hate that takes up so much space on that site spread by a small but loud minority of chronically online racist women who have no intentions of ever doing any actual productive IRL outreach, activism, advocacy, or charity work centered on women's liberation, but instead scare most women and girls away from the site with their hate and racism. When even so many white women on both the left and even the right are deterred from such a space by the racist vibes, when it's not just liberal women but also some conservative women including even religious Christian women I know who wouldn't feel comfortable joining, when even so many of the micro-aggressive mildly-racist women and girls I've known would probably say that the racism and hate on that site from a small handful of women goes wayyy too far... then it's not a useful site for most women and girls, but rather it's just a vehicle for spreading agendas, conspiracy theories, racism, and hate by white nationalists, conservatives, paranoid people, and anyone else (who might not even be female) who wants to influence groups of already angry women online who will be easily influenced and convinced over time by any agenda when they have the ability to post enough propaganda embedded into any post or comment that will just go unchallenged, and when they seem to be easily able to use AI generators like chatgpt or whatever else to help them post "reasonable" pseudo-intelligent-sounding nonsense essay rants that would be too exhausting for actual feminists on the site to be able to pick apart and critique at a fast enough pace that matches how frequently that sort of nonsense is posted. It feels all so frustrating that it's not noticable or obvious to admins or existing mods there. The funny thing to me also is how when I was trying to convince girl_undone that maybe there's still good ways to restart fresh with a new site that actually would carry out her initial feminist goals of a site for all women, she herself had brought up also the concern about bot accounts and AI bot users, and I had been so sure that this wouldn't be an issue with a new site tbh, because enough of us would surely be able to detect these patterns over time, but I had neglected to consider that she was actually so right, because it honestly does fully depend on the moderation and the ability of the admins and mods both (and the time they actually put in) to detect it, or listen to other member's vague-posting concerns, and to take action about bad-faith users early enough and to care enough to investigate it on their own without other site members having to present all the evidence and lie it all out tbh. I don't get how they don't notice or realize how suspicious some of the patterns from certain "popular" site regulars are, across so many posts. If any of them were open to reading those two propaganda articles shared here on Clovenhooves before, especially the article about the tactics of white-nationalists, idk if maybe reading those would end up helping some of them see what is happening on their site. I feel bad for some of the actually feminist mods there because I do sometimes get the impression that all of them maybe actually are feminists and that they do care, and that they maybe do notice to some extent that the site is too exhausting for most actual feminists to regularly engage on and that more conservative-leaning site members have been regularly taking over, but it's also on the admins at that point to also notice and care when so much of the problem of derailing and racism can be minimized and reduced heavily by taking care of like 3 to 10 of the most mean-spirited site regulars at most (and maybe like just letting them make their own pro-racism circle and quarantining them to there tbh).
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I hate the constant nonstop gaslighting there is towards women of color about undeniable instances of racism and being expected to explain step-by-step that if it's not acceptable to make generalizations about white people as a monolith that maybe it's also not reasonable or logical or fair to do the same about any other demographic, especially for the purposes of spreading hate towards them.
I hate even more how I can't help but start to distrust other women in general at seeing so many women express such intense feral loathing and disdain for other demographics of women and apply racist generalizations in such shady ways.
Honestly seeing how certain white women behave on "feminist" sites without being banned and seeing how enough other white women, white Jewish women, and women of other races, just go along with the racism without calling it out for the sake of having a safe space for them to vent and hate on other groups (they start out saying they only hate the men, but rarely push back when a few others redirect the hate towards other women; only a few regularly try and I'm grateful for them but feel bad that they only are burning themselves out too. — It shouldn't be controversial for mods/admins to just remove/warn the vaguely racist comments from the women who don't know better yet and to start scolding, temporary-banning/suspending, or permanently banning (even if it's just circle-wide bans), the site users who are repeatedly causing the same pattern of off-topic racist derailing without stopping or apologizing no matter if they identify as feminists or gender-critical or even if they are popular, well-liked/respected, or have other good posts, and it frustrates me that admins/mods don't seem to feel that way, and that even if the mods do see it, they seem to not have the power to make that judgment to enact circle-wide bans, so idk what the point of a "feminist" site for "all" women is when it's set up like that)... I actually can't even judge or blame some of the harsh-sounding women I've seen on Reddit, LipstickAlley and other spaces whose words I've felt hurt by when I've seen some make generalized statements (or use misogynistic slurs) expressing anger, dislike, hate, distrust, or animosity at all non-black women, or all white women, or all women from my (non-white) race for whatever reason, because it's hard to believe that female solidarity could ever be possible when there's always at least a few nasty hateful privileged women who try to use their privileges to rile up and spread hate towards other oppressed groups of women.
I had sometimes felt bad about some of the posts/comments with racism against my race I had seen on LipstickAlley sometimes by a small handful of women but every time I see on certain supposed feminist websites like Ovarit or Vexxed all the hate, resentment, scorn, loathing, and lack of understanding, sympathy, and empathy that so many white women and some of the prominent Jewish members seem to hold against Muslim women, Middle-Eastern women, Black women, South Asian women, etc... I just fully get why so many Black women specifically have expressed not trusting other non-Black women anymore because of how many times they've been burnt by that trust. And while I've only rarely seen any other demographics of women chatting online amongst each other about racism they've experienced from other groups from women, I'm sure that many of them have been similarly burned by women from all other races. And I just can't help but wonder sometimes what is the point of even trying to work towards any unity for women across nations and across races when our efforts keep getting derailed by the actions and hate of a few riling up so many others holding a lot of latent hate within themselves. I keep feeling constantly discouraged, and can't help but think that we're maybe all better off on our own, because any solidarity that women of color show towards each other or white women often won't get returned as much and will end up twisted somehow anyway and will drain our energy and make us feel resentful for it.
But then I obviously stop and think about all rarer genuinely kind women of all races that I've come across, and I think to myself again that it's wrong to generalize and give up female solidarity as a lost cause just because of a few nasty racist women. But idk. It's just demoralizing to have to tip-toe around the oversensitive racist white women who cry 'racism' themselves and try to get you censored for pointing out their racism even when you've tried to be an ally to them, because the accusation of possibly being a racist is more upsetting to some white women than the consideration of them actually having taken part in alienating, marginalizing, and silencing other women of color with their choice of words having come off as "racist". It's always considered more important for any women of color to apologize for having hurt the feelings of any white women with the "racism" accusations, than for those white women who said or agreed with those racist statements to hear out and learn from why some women of color perceived them as racist in the first place
I just feel like everything is pointless sometimes, and honestly having to chat "civilly" with racists who loathe me for my race just makes me feel worthless. It doesn't feel worth attempting to engage in "gender critical" or "radical feminist" or "feminist" spaces a lot of the time. I hate Islam because i hate how it hurts Muslim women, and ex-Muslim women, and the non-Muslim women who grow up around the religion. The racists hate Islam because they hate Muslims, including the women. No productive conversations can be held about Islam when everything is derailed into advocating for deporting colored women from the "civilized West" nonstop all the freaking time.
I feel so gaslit on certain "feminist sites" — not this one, obviously. I love Clovenhooves — when i point out racism from other women who fake being "feminist" yet only my comments get removed in a thread when other equally off-topic, derailing comments don't because of the bias that others hold. And i get told to stop vague-posting, and honestly I do get that... but if my own reports are ignored and if moderators really don't actually read and consider the other derailing comments in a thread as "derailing" or as verging towards racism, if not already having crossed that line... then I'm genuinely not sure how to explain it. And it makes me constantly question on whether I'm just going crazy and imagining the racism after after all, and then I end up feeling too demoralized and worthless to even bother pointing out racism and questioning if we deserve it. And tbh I think I'm just posting this rant honestly because on Vexxed, i keep feeling obligated to comment that "racism is bad", but my self-esteem is at the point that I'm questioning it again, and I guess I'm posting here just because I really would like to hear it from other actually feminist women here that "racism is bad" enough times so that maybe I can start to believe that again.
I hate that engaging on a white-supremacist-leaning "feminist" site constantly brings me to question whether or not racism is bad or whether people like me specifically are deserving of racism. Since I obviously do know that other groups and races absolutely don't deserve racism, but I never actually end up hearing it about my race and I'm not sure if I'd believe it at this point even if someone said that, since the online consensus on Vexxed/Ovarit and LipstickAlley alike sometimes feels as if there is one race that does deserve all the hate. I suppose i am posting here for some reassurance that all racism is bad and isn't justified, even if I'm not capable of believing it yet.
Funny how engaging on gender-critical spaces had been constantly making me feel this way about my race. It's even funnier how white-supremacists have successfully infiltrated GC spaces for so long without many "feminists" even realizing.
And I'm just so frustrated tbh because the main reasons that I want so badly for a women-centered feminist/gender-critical radfem-run radfem-modded site for all women and girls to exist is because there's genuinely SO much potential for this idea to lead to all sorts of productive conversations and collaborations, and to lead to all sorts of connections both IRL and online, and to benefit women and girls all around the world socially, professionally, academically, mentally, emotionally, and so many other ways because women and girls would have a safe space not just for venting, supporting each other, spreading awareness of issues, and building solidarity, or asking for advice on life, relationships, family, careers, academics, etc, but also they can find likeminded women and girls to work on short-term and long-term projects with that benefit their local and global communities, and share resources and knowledge, and motivate & encourage so many other girls and women who lurk that sort of feminist women-centered site. And I feel like I'd know how to recruit and build up each different "circle" and space for all sorts of different important/serioius and lighthearted/frivolous sorts of topics and help recruit, screen, and find the right kind of inclusive, sensitive female moderators for each circle (and enough of them) at a reasonable enough and efficient pace, and I literally have continued to offer to volunteer to do this for free without any long-term expectations and with me making it clear that I was willing to help for as long as I was needed and then step down and pass over any mod powers or whatever as soon as I was asked to, so it's not even like there would be much risk in trusting me if I'm too much of a random unknown person or not trusted enough to mod. But I literally just wanted an active, supportive, beneficial feminist women-centered site run by radfems to just exist, and I was willing to volunteer as much time, effort, and energy as it took to try to help build that sort of community, but it's hard to not question the goals of Vexxed as a site as it currently exists because it's obviously not set up in such a way that would be beneficial or productive for any of the women doing IRL activism work, advocacy work, outreach efforts to women & girls, building up female professional networks and organizations to support women & girls, etc. It's useless for anything anything productive to connect women and girls IRL or even online for their shares interests and hobbies, because there's too much hate that takes up so much space on that site spread by a small but loud minority of chronically online racist women who have no intentions of ever doing any actual productive IRL outreach, activism, advocacy, or charity work centered on women's liberation, but instead scare most women and girls away from the site with their hate and racism. When even so many white women on both the left and even the right are deterred from such a space by the racist vibes, when it's not just liberal women but also some conservative women including even religious Christian women I know who wouldn't feel comfortable joining, when even so many of the micro-aggressive mildly-racist women and girls I've known would probably say that the racism and hate on that site from a small handful of women goes wayyy too far... then it's not a useful site for most women and girls, but rather it's just a vehicle for spreading agendas, conspiracy theories, racism, and hate by white nationalists, conservatives, paranoid people, and anyone else (who might not even be female) who wants to influence groups of already angry women online who will be easily influenced and convinced over time by any agenda when they have the ability to post enough propaganda embedded into any post or comment that will just go unchallenged, and when they seem to be easily able to use AI generators like chatgpt or whatever else to help them post "reasonable" pseudo-intelligent-sounding nonsense essay rants that would be too exhausting for actual feminists on the site to be able to pick apart and critique at a fast enough pace that matches how frequently that sort of nonsense is posted. It feels all so frustrating that it's not noticable or obvious to admins or existing mods there. The funny thing to me also is how when I was trying to convince girl_undone that maybe there's still good ways to restart fresh with a new site that actually would carry out her initial feminist goals of a site for all women, she herself had brought up also the concern about bot accounts and AI bot users, and I had been so sure that this wouldn't be an issue with a new site tbh, because enough of us would surely be able to detect these patterns over time, but I had neglected to consider that she was actually so right, because it honestly does fully depend on the moderation and the ability of the admins and mods both (and the time they actually put in) to detect it, or listen to other member's vague-posting concerns, and to take action about bad-faith users early enough and to care enough to investigate it on their own without other site members having to present all the evidence and lie it all out tbh. I don't get how they don't notice or realize how suspicious some of the patterns from certain "popular" site regulars are, across so many posts. If any of them were open to reading those two propaganda articles shared here on Clovenhooves before, especially the article about the tactics of white-nationalists, idk if maybe reading those would end up helping some of them see what is happening on their site. I feel bad for some of the actually feminist mods there because I do sometimes get the impression that all of them maybe actually are feminists and that they do care, and that they maybe do notice to some extent that the site is too exhausting for most actual feminists to regularly engage on and that more conservative-leaning site members have been regularly taking over, but it's also on the admins at that point to also notice and care when so much of the problem of derailing and racism can be minimized and reduced heavily by taking care of like 3 to 10 of the most mean-spirited site regulars at most (and maybe like just letting them make their own pro-racism circle and quarantining them to there tbh).
