I think it’s worth noting that pretty much all the people who had noted a problem with fatphobia on the forum, ended up having to leave the fatphobia threads because of how unwilling to learn or adjust the other people posting were. Fatphobia can’t be a ‘debate’ just like racism or transphobia can’t be a ‘debate’. Or at least… Or if we’re going to claim that we as a community care about not shitting on marginalised groups.
(None of this is about you, anomalily, it’s about the community as a whole. You can’t do everything.)
But you didn’t want to flag the meme for moderation, so I guess I don’t know what we as a community can do to make it better that isn’t just having an extended (and hurtful) conversation over and over again.
I agree that fatphobia is pervasive and awful and it’s not something people are always well educated on. And I agree it shouldn’t be tolerated here.
How can we protect you while educating others without having YOU be on the front lines and getting hurt?
In an ideal world, could flagging the thing and having someone ELSE bear the brunt of informing the person that X is fatphobic help?
I don’t think the meme shouldn’t be flagged for moderation, but my strong preference is for the community to deal with it ourselves since there’s only one mod, plus I think there’s more opportunity for actually learning when there’s a conversation.
I don’t think the burden of figuring that out should fall solely on the people being harmed…?
I agree with HaH that we can’t fairly ask people to put effort into discreet flagging or gentler call outs without being also as adamant that people being educated have some rules around getting feedback and avoiding heel digging.
I mentioned above that I think that what is and isn’t fatphobic (the same with racism and transphobia) is different for different people. I think one issue we are running into is that some people want to have a philosophical debate, partially so they can figure out to avoid harm in the future, and some folks feel very strongly about the definitions of what they see as fatphobic content- but calling the fatphobic and moving on can’t prevent it from happening in more discussions.
So we keep getting into the discussions that makes no one feel heard or know how to make sure they communicate without being fatphobic in the future.
Just like racism or islamophobia or transphobia, what is seen as racist or islamophobic changes over time and is different depending on the context and person saying it.
I never want someone sharing their own lived experiences to be banned or made to feel unwelcome forum wide (though asking for spoilers or for it to be off certain threads is a standard practice) and the nature of recent callouts have actually made some people leave the forum feeling unwelcome.
I really feel that this comes back to having a clear code of conduct, wherein racism, transphobia, fatphobia, etc. are explicitly called out as not tolerated.
This might be a place to have our own OMD definition of fatphobia put into words.
There is this which was hastily made when I made the forum. It is displayed to every user until they dismiss it and emailed to every user when they sign up
Same. Apologies if my suggestions were redundant, heh.
Honestly, call out culture sucks. It’s one thing for someone to say, “Hey, that’s fatphobic” which has happened and another for someone to say, “I can’t believe you just said that” or something. Similarly, a knee jerk response accusing someone of being a bully for speaking up versus asking them to remember that we’re all learning is very different. Maybe the code of conduct can include some modelling of good behavior?
It definitely can stand a refresh and we need to find an enforcement mechanism that deals with violations quickly AND doesn’t put undue burden on people to call it out AND has a clear set of standards for what kind of content is perceived to be transphobic, fatphobic, racist, or otherwise. That way people can feel empowered to flag and mods can feel empowered to remove and have clear guidelines to point to
And the other thing about this is that while I do think there are better and worse ways of calling someone out (and I am NOT claiming that I always get it right)… Focusing on how to do it without ever upsetting anyone is centreing the feelings of the people posting something awful, instead of the feelings of the people being harmed.
I do not expect anyone to centre my feelings if I unintentionally post something racist.
Yeah. It’s really tough.
Tone policing the person doing the call out isn’t cool.
But neither is unintentionally alienating not some stranger on the internet, but your fellow forumer who genuinely doesn’t get why a joke isn’t okay.
I think this is part of the reason the calling out should be less of a burden on the oppressed peoples and more a policy/mod thing. Which it seems like we’re working on.
Here’s the thing, people that are also fat have left the forum and requested I lock their accounts because of aggressive callouts. All the harmed people are part of the oppressed class.
The discussions are hurting feelings all around, and aren’t being productive if everyone is just leaving thei discussions.
We need to imagine people complexly here. I am asking to find a way where we realize we all have learning to do, and that these long discussions are making everyone feel awful and less human.
That’s genuinely very sad, but a) being fat doesn’t mean someone isn’t posting fatphobic comments so it’s just not as simple as fat people being only harmed and never causing harm, and b) I assume the aggressive callouts were flagged and modded if they were out of line?
Absolutely. Right now, no-one is feeling good about any of this.
That person seems like they also had deeper concerns regarding general equity on the forum and I’m not sure it’s fair to lay it all on the discussion of fatphobia, right? I’m not trying to isolate and name people, just not sure it’s completely because we’re talking about fatphobia.
I agree with you completely that this reality sucks and is trash. I have open ended thoughts and feelings.
My formative experience addressing isms is as a Muslim after 9/11 in the US, the only way I could build bridges at all was to focus on communicating in a way that also honored the other person’s feelings. From a pragmatic standpoint, I felt like even though it feels unfair, it is what worked in getting allyship.
Also, the systemic ways oppression rears its head does a disservice to everyone. We are all victims of structural issues and misinformation, right? Especially when it comes to fatphobia. Maybe it’s more helpful to see us as in it together?
Though it doesn’t help when people just double down, yeah.
I am not debating the issue, just trying some reframes to see if it adds to the discussion.
I am deeply sorry that you had to centre the feelings of people who were prejudiced against you, in order to get them to see you as human. I don’t think that’s okay.
I don’t know who you’re referencing specifically here, but I think anomalily has had more than one person leave over this.
It’s really tough.