Compiling this data was not as hard as I expected, let’s go through the data and the shiny graphs!
Age of Beeple
Most are above 24! Seems we got an older average age compared to a lot of social media. It would be interesting to see how many came here with experiences from independent forums before Reddit.
Where Beeple reside
This one’s a big graph. Though we can notice most people are from the US. Would be nice to see more countries represented though a big part of it likely has to do with language. (You will need to open the big graph in another tab, it’s too big to show properly.)
Gender identity of Beeple
So, as expected, mostly men. However, less than expected which is nice to see. There should be outreach to at least equalize this.
Sexual orientation of Beeple
This is kinda surprising. It seems we managed to get a lot more LGBTQ+ people than expected considering most of you all come from Reddit - so this is nice to see. This is most likely because of our focus on a safe space.
Whiteness of Beeple
As expected, mostly white which is unfortunate. I think there’s outreach to be done in that regard as well.
Neurodivergence of Beeple
We seem to have a really surprising amount of neurodivergent people! Definitely nice to see.
Beeple with disabilities
I… have no idea how to interpret this data so I’ll just say, shiny graph.
Beeple’s awareness of the Fediverse
Most knew about the fediverse but still a good 20% had not heard about it so glad to see you all managed to find your way here!
How Beeple have been dealing with Beehaw
It seems most people feel relatively confident in their ability to use Beehaw and most people seem to enjoy it. That makes me really happy to see. Feels rewarding, feels good.
Conclusion
I wanna thank everyone for the feedback about the survey and its questions - we’ll do better next time! I’m glad we did this survey because it shows the areas to work on in terms of outreach! Thank you all for your participation!
I just want to pipe in and and say thank you for caring about diversity. Lots of discourse here about how that’s hostile to white people. In my opinion purposefully misinterpreting “unfortunate” to mean “white people not welcome” is a perfect representation of why WHY diversity matters.
Because as a POC it’s clear to me that there are valid reasons why a white-dominated community can be… Uncomfortable. Like the very comments here that push back and pretend that race isn’t a issue and that POC are racist ones for caring about it. Not bothering at all to understand where it’s coming from and why it matters.
Edit: I didn’t write this at first but I can’t bite my tongue anymore. White people who get hositle over this have suffered from main character syndrome for way too long. You feel unwelcome because some online community simply wants more diversity? Why is it that in your mind one more POC means one less white person? Speaks more about your world view than anything else.
I’ve felt unwelcome my entire life because people resent my intrusion into their white bubbles. The whole point of Beehaw is that it’s inclusive. I’m a snowflake who wants her safe space.
In my opinion purposefully misinterpreting “unfortunate” to mean “white people not welcome” is a perfect representation of why WHY diversity matters.
it’s a good indicator we are going to continue to ask that question on the survey forever, for what that’s worth. very clearly a “the beatings will continue until morale improves” question because oh god, some of the responses here
I’m so glad that the mods aren’t getting steamrolled into submission. I was having a bad mental health day today and some of these comments really bothered me. Immediately my reddit-trained mind was like, oh, you dumbass snowflake. Touch grass.
But then I was like, fuck, the whole reason I’m on Beehaw is because it’s supposed to be different here. Thanks for continuously affirming my belief in it 👍
To be clear, we’re also aware that repeatedly being exposed to this kind of conversation can be demoralizing as well. I watched this happen on another website where the just asking questions crew would show up in every goddamn thread about every identity that wasn’t ciswhitemale. I remember a specific thread asking for women to talk about what’s hard for them, which was both dominated by male voices before any women showed up and then when women actually talked about the problems they experienced (and deeply couched their language, I might add), they were met with an endless line of men insisting “that’s not me”.
So to be absolutely clear, we value your voice and we don’t want to lose the community we’ve built here either. If this is ever frustrating to see, please vent about it. I can’t promise I’ll be perfect, but I’m trying my best to avoid tone policing (I’ve already screwed this up a few times, and I apologize deeply to anyone I scared away), especially on issues which directly effect or marginalize your experience. I think it helps a lot to have such a diverse set of responses, because often people are unaware how deeply frustrating and exhausting fragility and managing other’s emotional state can be, especially when you are on the receiving end of marginalization.
I’d like to respectfully ask that you don’t hide behind the excuse of people acting in bad faith. I think that section, as written, is actually difficult to interpret in good faith. The charitable interpretation of it is that we need to be intentionally welcome and aware of POC in the community, but that is just factually not what that sentence says. It just says that it’s unfortunate most of the people here are white. It just seems like an intentionally inflammatory way of phrasing the meaning.
This has been addressed ad nauseum in this post.
You are bringing social connotations to the definition of the word unfortunate, ones which are influenced by your background and upbringing. The person who used the word clarified how it was meant to be used. Your ‘charitable interpretation’ has been definitively proven already. We’ve asked for people to treat each other with good faith in this space and have requested that you ask questions rather than assume bad faith unless it’s unequivocally clear they are spreading hate speech - this is outlined in our philosophy docs and is generally nice behavior.
I understand that you are upset, but I’d ask of you and anyone else reading this to stop creating the same conversation again in another place on this post.
[edit: on re-reading, the sentence that followed it that said “I think there’s outreach to be done” is clear, even if I think the words could have been ordered better for flow, and connect this more directly and closely to the “unfortunate” comment.]
The charitable interpretation of it is that we need to be intentionally welcome and aware of POC in the community
Yeah, I think as written it implies too much to be interpreted unambiguously. I agree, the charitable interpretation is “we need to do more” but that’s an inference that is drawn from my pre-existing understanding of beehaw’s management and vision, and maybe a sprinkling of trust in their intentions.
Without explicitly stating “unfortunately we failed to reach minority communities,” my feeling is that it leaves a lot of room for accusation of other parties for the “unfortunateness” of the situation or misreading of future intent, and personally I think that just leads to unclear communication.
It just says that it’s unfortunate most of the people here are white. It just seems like an intentionally inflammatory way of phrasing the meaning.
we could have used the most flowery, cushiony language possible to explain how we want a more diverse community and i am confident it would change almost nothing–but in many ways, it’s been much more revealing of people’s insecurities and hangups that need to be overcome to have phrased it that way.
Thank you for writing this!
As a straight white male it’s a bit hard to feel your words carry any weight in discussions like this.
I’m here trying to be an ally to ant decent human being who might feel they need one! <3
I actually think your words carry a lot of weight, both bad and good. As an ally you can advocate for and support. As a POC it can be exhausting to always have fight. You can’t live our lives but you can help carry the torch when we’re too tired to do so. And other white people care more about what you have to say.
The reality is as a white man you have outsized power. You can use that to dismiss and berate, or you can use it to understand and support. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for doing the latter. Your words are extremely important in this discussion.
Yeah, it’s easy to forget. A former boss of mine had a great coffee mug, it said… paraphrasing here but basically “when you’re used to privelege, equality can feel like oppression”.
I’m so happy to part of corner of the net that actually try to love your neighbor instead of hating everyone and everything.
I just don’t understand why you would want to waste the little energy you have to be an ass.
Basically… “Don’t be a dick” - Wil Wheaton
(Of yeah… the biggest fucking irony… got to love all the white folks working on a tan while still hating people of color. I mean. What the fuck? Almost everyone love a tan… but that’s just working on getting the skin color that bugs you… nutters)
Ok, sorry for the rant. I’m a bit drunk at the moment. Love you guys!
Love seeing the results from the survey, and also love the word “beeple.”
What is ‘white’ exactly and why is it unfortunate?
Where I am from, we don’t make these distinctions on the color of a person. That and the fact that unless we are quantifying somehow the ‘shade’ of the skin color it’s impossible to make any serious category.
I’ve always thought that the way americans divide people by color is really dumb and very antiquated, even bordering immorality.
I wouldn’t bring that for future statistics. I don’t understand why race is important in a medium where we can’t see each others.
What is ‘white’ exactly and why is it unfortunate?
‘White’ is an artificially constructed privileged racial caste predicated on and necessitating anti-Black violence.
It is a legal and social ingroup whose borders expand and contract as needed to preserve itself.
Its over representation is “unfortunate” in so far as any lack of diversity-of-experience will make for a less rich community for all involved, but specifically having membership skew towards the more privileged members of a hierarchy can damage that community by having it tend toward obviousness of how its own privileges and position in society can affect its worldview.
A member from the community might, for example, say they “don’t see race” and not understand how that position itself upholds white supremacy.
They might suggest racism can be solved by not talking about race and get no pushback from a community whose members by-and-large have no experience of being subject to racial discrimination themselves.
Generally, there are things we all don’t know we don’t know and the more similar those around us are to us, the more overlap there is likely to be in those things.
A diverse community is less likely to be oblivious to its own lack of knowledge.
I’m white, and I just took that to mean they’d like to see more diversity. As in, it’s not unfortunate that members are white so much as unfortunate they haven’t attracted more diverse representation (if I’m right, I do think it could have been worded better).
And to be clear, in contexts like this, no one is dividing people “by color,” but by experience. While race may be largely imaginary biologically, it has been and continues to be a major variable related to a person’s economics, education, housing, etc. due to the external factors that do treat race as significant (i.e., as an American, we have historically and systemically discriminated against non-white people in pretty much every facet of civic and social life).
That stuff matters to…a lot of people. But it’s not at the expense of white people–we can all be happy to see diversity in our communities. It’s a net gain for everyone.
Yes - I’m white as well. It’s more so that I want to see more diverse representation because I believe that a majority white (also majority men) tends to push out people of colour as they will be a minority group.
For example, if a thread about abortion (an issue that affects mostly women) was filled with men talking about it - it’s unlikely that a women would want to comment there. I believe the same would apply with a majority of people being white in a thread about BLM for example.
I think it could’ve been worded better but I didn’t really think about the wording of these much at all.
I understand.
I guess part of me wanted to get away from the same pervasive US politics that’s plaguing reddit. I had hopes that maybe we wanted to build a less american community and more inclusive of other points of view but it seems we are going to fall back to the same thing here.
I guess part of me wanted to get away from the same pervasive US politics that’s plaguing reddit.
i hope you understand this but: asking whether people are white or not isn’t US politics, it might literally be the single most important sociological question in the world because whether you’re white or not for the vast majority of living human beings immediately predetermines a huge chunk of your status globally
IMO the interesting part is that this is not American politics. Ironically out of all the western countries, the US actually talks about it the most, but the legacy of colonialism and white supremacy is still taken as the default in much of the world. Most folks in Europe are quite blind to it since it’s really taken as the default. It’s a pretty global issue, but very few places do people openly confront it.
What is ‘white’ […] Where I am from, we don’t make these distinctions on the color of a person. That and the fact that unless we are quantifying somehow the ‘shade’ of the skin color it’s impossible to make any serious category.
i absolutely promise that your country does, whether you are conscious of that or not. whiteness, in any case, is a social construct (and even if it wasn’t, race and ethnicity are also basically arbitrary) so you’re not going to ever get a singular, satisfactory answer on this. the whole point at a sociological level is that it’s an amorphous, hegemony-based category that transcends political barriers and basically divides the world into “haves” and “have-nots”. it doesn’t make sense because it can’t ever, it’s arbitrary, and it’s not a “serious” category because it’s not really intended to be.
unfortunately, on that basis it’s also the single most important (and unambiguous) descriptor of one’s racial identity in a global context–so we’re kind of locked into using it here because it is actually really important to know what our community looks like, and we don’t literally want to use American census groupings.
I meant that there is no official sanctioned discrimination (but of course there is racism in my country). If I remember correctly, in the US you have documents where you have to write your ethnicity or the color of your skin. This makes me think that there is an active effort by the government to categorize people based on the color of their skin. This for me is immoral.
It also is ridiculous because there is no definition of what ‘white’ is or how much white is white. There must be like thousands of shades of skin colors but no definition of what white is.
And I’m saying this because there also countries you may call white in Europe that are dirt poor and clearly in the have-nots bag so this ‘whites have’ and the rest ‘don’t have’ is a very american way of understanding this.
Again, just hoped for a less americanized point of view.
In this context it’s mainly shorthand for privilege because white includes most European ancestry. I can’t speak for everyone here but I absolutely love diversity and I’m thrilled we have such good representation on so many levels but this is a good potential target for improvement.
Uh, outside of census data, no, I don’t think ethnicity or colour of skin is in us documents. The discrimination does not come from law targeting based on ethnicity but usually the characteristics of the social group that are inherited from segregation and slavery.
Also, yes, there is no definition of white, it’s why we phrased it “do you consider yourself white?”.
As an American, there isn’t any official paperwork I’ve ever seen in the US that requests, let alone requires, my skin tone or race, with the sole exception of the US census and the occasional optional and anonymous EEOC questionnaire that some job applications have, neither of which record anything to do with skin color or appearance.
I don’t understand why race is important in a medium where we can’t see each others.
Because people bring their personal experiences, histories, and identities to every discussion. Having a folks with a range of different experiences and identities contributing, imo, greatly benefits discussions; I want to hear multiple perspectives on an issue (within reason of course - I’m not interested in engaging with racists, transphobes, fascists, etc., for obvious reasons). If a community is very one-sided (ex. Mostly white folks, mostly men, and so on) how can I curate a well-balanced perspective on a given topic? I only know what I know, and if everybody around me is coming from a similar background and we’re all saying the same shit - what kind of discussion is that?
Good point, but then you are generalizing about ‘white’ men like they are all the same and they all have the same point of view.
And by saying that it’s unfortunate that the majority of users are ‘white’ it looks as if they wished these users weren’t here.
I’m a cis white man and I felt no offence when reading that. I also embrace diversity and I’m curious why you don’t?
We could build a community of men, each having a unique points of view, but none of them would be a woman’s.
The interesting thing about words is that we made them all up. Different people feel very differently about certain words in certain contexts. Slang and vernacular are perfect examples of this - we learn how people are using existing words in new ways all the time, and we adjust appropriately. What people don’t always recognize, however, is that words fall in and out of fashion constantly and how they are applied are also cultural artifacts. Prolific artists, famous movies, and important political figures all shape the way we interpret specific words - the cultural zeitgeist controls more than we are often aware.
Rather than assuming that unfortunate means it must be negative, because that’s the experience you’ve had when that word was used around you, I’d suggest asking questions and assuming good faith. You could ask what do you mean, when you use the word unfortunate before jumping to conclusions. Perhaps English isn’t the posters first language, or perhaps English in the country they are from use the word unfortunate in a very different way. Questions and good faith, rather than assumptions and escalation can quickly solve any questions you have and everyone leaves happy.
I think this is also a perfect example of why diversity is so amazing to be around and experience because you get exposed to so many more ways to utilize language, so many different backgrounds, and so many diverse points of view 😄
That’s true. I don’t think all white folks, or men, or any other category of people is a monolith - but just that hearing, for example, a woman’s POV - especially a Black woman’s POV, or a trans woman’s POV - on gender disparity in sports is a voice I really want to hear in that discussion, since those folks might have a very specific take on the topic. Even if everyone else in the discussion is a man - and I assume they WILL be men from a wide range of cultures, language communities, sexual orientations, etc. - still, none of them can bring the particular nuance that (in this example) a woman can.
I could get a lot more political on this, but I think that’s really the heart of the issue. I believe admins are saying “we have a majority group here in these ways, and while that’s not unexpected, it’s unfortunate that we’re pretty one-sided in those categories of folks right now - so we want to try and change that.”
However, I want to acknowledge that the tendency to single out white people and men, in particular, is kind of a thing right now, which - speaking from my lived experience as a white person - can feel real bad in the immediate moment. Nobody wants to feel unwelcome or like their existence is problematic. Unfortunately, the world is set up in ways where certain groups of folks (usually white, usually men) are repeatedly asked their opinion on things, or given the power to make decisions over the lives of people from completely different backgrounds. Assuming everybody is engaging in good faith, it’s more about making sure everybody has a seat at the table and less about “your very existence is problematic and you should be shunned.” Yes, some people mean that when they say it, but again, that does fuck all to foster a healthy discussion space (again, within reason here - fuck fascists and so on). How tf is a woman (for example), regardless of the diversity of her lived experiences, ever going to be able to speak to men’s mental issues and the crisis of care going on there? Like, a thousand women, all of them from widely different cultures and backgrounds, could never bring the personal nuance necessary to truly discuss that important issue.
Do marginalized people sometimes vent by making sweeping generalizations? Sure. Does that promote open and healthy discussion? No. But not every space is a discussion space, and I try to stay open-minded when I’m met with that energy. People are hurting; sometimes they talk shit. And this goes both ways - folks can end up defensive after hearing people talk shit constantly. That’s completely natural, but I truly don’t think that’s the case here. And Beehaw is young - there’s still lot of growing to do. That this survey was even launched makes me feel like Beehaw’s future is pretty bright.
That’s a lot of words for you to say you literally have zero understanding how the lived experience of people of color is very different.
Beehaw wants to be better than reddit, which was mostly straight white men voices at the detriment of everyone else. It’s really dishonest as even in the EU the loved experience of people of color is different.
It’s really ignorant and narrow-minded of you as white people are a minority worldwide but the majority in wealth and tech. A space that celebrates people of color is rare and why oh fucking why do you HAVE to make it about you?
I don’t understand why race is important in a medium where we can’t see each others.
I think it matters if the demographics of the site skew strongly from the demographics of the countries represented, as that suggests something about the site might be offputting to certain people.
Though I don’t think this is the case based on the results?
What could be offputting about this? I don’t get it.
Maybe there have been a lot of issues with these people you call ‘white’ here but I haven’t seen anything out of the ordinary.
What could be offputting about this? I don’t get it.
Allowed communities, moderation styles, etc. If you find that certain demographics are not eager to participate it might suggest an issue with moderation.
Maybe there have been a lot of issues with these people you call ‘white’
I don’t think that’s the implication at all. They’re not saying ‘white’ people are bad. They’re expressing concern that they might be hosting a place that isn’t sufficiently welcoming to others.
Where I am from, we don’t make these distinctions on the color of a person.
Not everybody is from wherever you’re from. There’s a chart up there for that, too.
So you don’t care about people from other countries and you want to bring US politics to this site AGAIN like in reddit? Got it.
You seem to go out of your way to read and response to everything in the most argumentative way possible. Basically every comment I see from you is this way. In case you are not aware, people are not obligated to talk to you. Please discover a new way to interact with people.
Yeah, this whole thing REALLY rubbed me the wrong way. I’m going to get shit for this, but it comes off as really sexist, racist and - as someone who is neurodivergent - kinda condescending.
Its the same oppression olympics game they always play. They think the more disenfranchised you are the more legitimacy there is to what you are saying.
it’s astonishing how frequently the worst takes on our instance come from kbin federation chuds who don’t seem to understand where they are
I think it can certainly be reworded but I’m not really sure how to put it. The core idea is that (at least in North America and Europe), people who are considered “white” have privilege so we want to make sure that we can take that into account.
We also have a !poc@beehaw.org community so at least, it seemed to make sense to me to word it that way to account for that point of view.
I’m not really sure how we can better handle this question - it’s certainly tricky.
I think what you’re trying to say is that the lack of racial diversity is unfortunate, but people are reading it as “unfortunate we have all these white people.”
Probably just change the wording to that effect, or maybe something about how having such a large majority of a community from a single race can cause people from other races/ethnicities to feel left out, etc.
“The core idea is that (at least in North America and Europe), people who are considered “white” have privilege”
What countries in Europe are we talking about?
As a POC from a european country I have never felt discriminated based on the color of my pigment and have had the exact same opportunities as the people who would classify as “white”.
I would classify the discrimination in Europe more based on the fact if you are an immigrant and the specific country of origin.
The above is frowned upon much more.
Even then diversity can also be reached to make sure to target more people from different countries who then bring different cultures to a forum if we talk just about Europe.
It is impossible to talk about Europe as 1 entity, there are so many different countries and cultures within Europe, which is diverse in itself.
It is just (hopefully) some food for thought.
Maybe something along the lines of “Do you identify as someone of an ethnic minority?” or “Have you ever experienced discrimination based on skin color or apparent ethnicity?” Not perfect by any means, but some food for thought.
As someone who is from the US, I actually somewhat agree with those who say that asking for race/ethnicity is a very America/Western Europe-centric way of thinking. While I recognize that the vast majority of Beeple are indeed from those areas, it can be alienating for those who come from countries where the concept of “whiteness” either isn’t a deciding factor in discrimination or doesn’t even matter/exist in the first place.
It definitely is a tricky subject to work with. I think the survey was decently sensitive, but while I appreciate the thought behind this post, there probably should have been more care with and input on how it was worded, even if that added input is just having a couple people from outside US/Canada/Western Europe look it over and give opinions.
Maybe something along the lines of “Do you identify as someone of an ethnic minority?” or “Have you ever experienced discrimination based on skin color or apparent ethnicity?” Not perfect by any means, but some food for thought.
It definitely is a tricky subject to work with. I think the survey was decently sensitive, but while I appreciate the thought behind this post, there probably should have been more care with and input on how it was worded, even if that added input is just having a couple people from outside US/Canada/Western Europe look it over and give opinions.
the problem with suggestions like this is we did think about this, and there is a reason we phrased it this way on the survey. you are kind of presuming we just winged this wording–we did not. you make suggestions for alternatives, but i assume for example you don’t want ethnic Hungarians in Romania or white Afrikaners answering that they’re ethnic minorities for the purpose of what we’re asking here (whether or not they’re white–both groups are very much so). i also assume you also don’t want white people to say they’re oppressed in American society for not being the center of the universe (because many white people do think reverse racism is real, and a real problem). both of those are off the cuff examples of big problems with your proposals—and indeed every alternative we’ve heard so far runs into being far more Anglo- and ethno-centric than what we put here.
Don’t worry, you’ve been kind every time I’ve seen a message from you and I wouldn’t ascribe someone else’s comments onto another.
We’ve been thinking it over and I think the best way to make that question clearer would be to ‘double down’ on the concept of whiteness as a form of purity. It’s not ideal but it would probably answer the question for people who are questioning - the answer is probably non-white. If we add mixed then it just confuses the results more than it does make the data more actionable.
The other choice we’d have is likely to define ethnicity but that is almost certainly going to be a lot less actionable and hell to pick a condensed list especially from a non-US point of view.
Thank you for your continued support!
It feels really weird like, is someone “lighter” or “white”? Can you show anywhere in a country like you describe where white is used for demographics or are you just trying to make an argument?
I’m aware? You acted like people would choose the wrong choice.
Your “white” class is still the rich minority, so if they fell for the wrong choice, it will still be helpful to show the number of people who are privileged.
You PLEASE look up global colonization and how it effected every culture plz. Don’t talk down to me. Your intentions sound like they are to cause trouble not to be helpful.
My only feedback is the words choices here were, unfortunate. It comes across as the author found undesired demographics which felt not inclusive.
In my opinion this is not being nice.
I am a minority in some parts of the graph and a majority in others. Reading this left my feeling I wasn’t welcome here which I have felt ever day before reading this post.
I understand, I’m a white cis man and I used to feel this way sometimes when reading things like this, but my perspective has since changed.
The way I see it, Beehaw is actively trying to be an inclusive space, as opposed to a lot of other online spaces which really aren’t so inclusive.
My expectation would be that, naturally, POC, women, and lgbtq+ people would hang out more in inclusive spaces than non-inclusive ones, while non-minorities may be evenly spread of even favor non-inclusive spaces. Therefore, I would expect demographics of inclusive spaces to have an overall significantly smaller percentage of non-minorities.
However, some of these numbers look relatively close to national demographics (at-least based on those I see on Wikipedia for the US), and may even have a smaller percentage of minorities than national average. I don’t know much about statistics and I’m not a mathematician, there’s probably all sorts of factors going into why those numbers are the way they are. Still, instinctively, those numbers look unfortunate to me, since they don’t reflect my expectations of a successfully inclusive community.
I hope nobody feels left out.
Thing is, beehaw is pretty loud about being a safe space the neurodivergent and or folks with different gender identities and sexualities. That stuff is race agnostic and those people will likely fall in line with national percentages for race.
Given that most of folks are from the US, which is about 75% white, and another big chunk is from nations that are 80-90% white, I can’t say that I’m surprised buy the numbers. If anything, given the users from Canada, western Europe, and Australia, Beehaw is probably a hair more racially diverse than the general population.
The part where he says it’s “mostly white people which is unfortunate” was an odd thing to say.
Doesn’t make white people feel very welcome I’d imagine.
The part where he says it’s “mostly white people which is unfortunate” was an odd thing to say.
Doesn’t make white people feel very welcome I’d imagine.
I’m as white as driven snow and I took that as “it’s unfortunate we don’t have more diversity in this area”
The entire point of white supremacy has been to make an in class which unquestionably dominates in all spheres of life.
There is no place white people are not “welcome”.
There is no space white people cannot go.
You can see in the response to (relatively weak) Covid restrictions of white people reacting violently to (likely for the first time in their lives) being told there was somewhere they could not go. And what did the signs they held say? “I Need A Haircut!”. They felt the withdrawal of not being waited on—being able to feel superior to someone—like a drug.
Further, a main power of whiteness is its invisibility. To not only have the freedom to go anywhere but to have that freedom never acknowledged or commented on. To never have to hyphenate. American. Not Mexican-American. British. Not Black-British. A person, who never has to consider that they are indeed “a white person”.
I would ask the imaginary white person referenced in your post if they are really being made to feel unwelcome by other white people asking if they’re white, or if they are experiencing discomfort at having to confront the fact that they –are– white and not “default”.
I would question how often they even consider “Am I welcome here?”. I would ask them to examine if they ever ask themself “is this a space for me?” or if they conversely tend to move through anywhere and everywhere with no thought to the idea they might be stepping on someone’s toes.
I’m white and I understood it as: “It’s unfortunate that we don’t have more diversity yet.” In no way was it meant to sound like “oh great, look at all of the white people.”
But what irks me is that whole “exclusion” of cis males thing. I’m being general here, but it seems more and more it happens under the guise of “creating safe spaces for people.” It spoils and demeans the entire social experience even if maybe we don’t see it from that perspective. I mean, I get it, not everyone is completely comfortable around others and sometimes there’s underlying issues/trauma there, understandably. People are, and can be, just gross.
On here, and this applies to everyone, it’s an open, shared space for ALL – not just “make a special space for me.” That’s the thing about equality…it needs to be equally divided to ensure we can have specific spaces for men, for women and for alllllllllllllllllllll of those who fit in between or don’t fit at all into these categories. It just astounds me how a group can be literally screaming to be noticed and loved, and yet there is so much hate a vitriol coming from that exact same group shot back when people take notice, reach out and try to do something about it.
Beehaw from what I have seen and experienced is indeed trying to proactive and advocate for all users, not just some.
All I’m saying is you can’t have it both ways – its either inclusive for everyone, or its not. Simple as. If you want a blinders on, customized, experience where there is absolutely no interaction with anyone outside of who/what you deem acceptable… check out Facebook or Twitter. Or even find a trans-run trans-only board/community.
Edit: punctuation
Completely agree with you! I’m also white and one of the harder things I’ve had to come to terms with is that I shouldn’t be automatically comfortable in all spaces. Where I live in the US, the default space is white and we expect BIPOC people to integrate into our spaces but we never put effort into integrating into their spaces. I would rather this be a space where more people are comfortable even if that means I might have an adjustment period…
I’m glad we are 100% on the same wavelength on that, RiddleMeWhy.
Honestly, same here up in Canada; the expectation is “they” came to “us” and need to adjust to “our” ways. Scarcely do we take the time to put the effort into doing the same; whether that be in the form of actively trying to understand that culture, gender, or sexuality, etc.
The act of genuinely just acknowledging that there are other people in the room with different and valid viewpoints that, like or unlike, your own do in fact exist! Especially to try to consciously do this before you type your response, and be kind, speaks volumes to the room. It goes unspoken, though, the effort it takes to be civil, even when something upsets you. It just takes a moment to be kind.
