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Comment by aspaceman | Hacker News Reader

> using 4chan and ignore the crap you don't care about.

Can you even imagine using 4chan as a woman or a black man? Like not only in real life do you have to deal with people being racist as hell, but hey here's this forum that's entirely shameless about it too.

You seem to believe that folks can just ignore being called the n-word day-in and day-out as if it doesn't really affect them.

The only people who can go to 4chan and just ignore the toxic stuff are the people who aren't affected by the toxic stuff.

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Black occasional user here who recently turned 30.

I used 4chan heavily when I was in college and early 20s. Back then most of the hate in /pol/ was directed at religion in general and scientology in particular and /r9k/ hadn't quite became a cesspool of incels. But as I got older I started to see the change. It became too "safe" (for lack of a better word) for people with social stigma to express their frustrations as anger and eventually misogyny and racism. I mostly stick to /tg/ and a few of the porn boards now but I'm hyper aware of who my peers might be. I know the simple answer is to "ignore the stuff you don't like" but that shit leaks everywhere and I still run across the occasional racist comment when I visit, even when I try to stick to the places that aren't literal cancer.

Although I am not black, I am Asian, and can be described by a word started with C (/csg/ if you lurk /g/), and more accurately G. I would be offended if someone calls me that in real life.

On 4chan though, I myself really don't get offended in any way. Someone explained it this way: you're only supposed to be offended if someone calls you a n* f* in a setting that not everyone is. On 4chan, everyone is already a n* f* so it kinda levels the playing field.

I get it that others minority people might not share the same view.

> you're only supposed to be offended

Folks have the right to be offended whenever they want to be.

If you aren't offended, then that's your decision and you're free to make it. But ultimately I still believe you should respect the opinions of those who are offended. If they hate 4chan, I'm not going to argue with them about it.

There's a lot of folks in this thread claiming that if you're offended by speech on 4chan, then it's really you who has the problem and that's mainly who I'm trying to address.

People have a right to be offended and the offender has a right not to care. I certainly don't endorse 4chan culture but it's different from what you think.

What is it that you think "I think" 4chan's culture is?

I am saying that 4chan is not a safe place if you are black or most minorities. Period. I don't care what 4chan's culture is because it doesn't matter for the sake of this point.

A safe place? It’s not like they can slap you over tcp/ip. I think you take the internet too seriously, and are disrespectful of other people’s opinions.

I know what you're saying, and I'm telling you that you're incorrect. 4chan is not a safe space for anyone, minorities are not special in this regard.

And what everyone else is saying is that you're wrong. Just like the article writer who thinks they know everything about 4chan without going on it, you presume a lot about the site that just isn't true. Calling names on 4chan isn't really an insult. It's just the way everyone talks to each other. And race or gender isn't really relevant, and you'll get called racial slurs no matter your background.

My perspective (21/M/Black Canadian): the people who say we can just ignore it are right. That’s because you pretty much have to learn to deal with it as an avid internet user (even on more ‘vanilla’ sites like YouTube).

The part that affects me isn’t the word itself, and I don’t personally feel offended by a stranger using it. It’s just over time when you see so much vitriol directed towards your race even in places where it should be irrelevant (like gaming), I noticed I began to think that pretty much all white people were consumed by a hatred of blacks (why else would I see the n word being used so often?). It's hard to remind yourself about how big the internet is, maybe it's just the particular communities you visit, etc.

Edit: since this a throwaway anyway, I did develop a distaste for associating with white people for a period of time. In my mind, they were two faced and probably wouldn't hesitate to call people like me n*gger online.

Thanks for offering your perspective on this. I obviously can't speak to what it's like personally - I'm only going off of others' experience and my own intuition for what it would feel like.

> The part that affects me isn’t the word itself, and I don’t personally feel offended by a stranger using it. ...

This is kind of the point I'm trying to make further down the thread. There's a lot of folks saying that 4chan's use of this language is a form of community and culture, rather than meant as actual offense. But I don't think that makes it okay for exactly the point you make here.

I don't know but people call each other worse things than that here, even if they are all white. I wont even repeat the things they say.

Do not think that whites are all like those people.

Where is this idea coming from that black or women are somehow special cases that need to be handled with care [0]? I know the answer is "America", but plenty of people around the world have been killed, enslaved, displaced, humiliated and any number of things. And every one of them, whether they are from Scandinavia or Africa, will get insulted and ignore it or leave.

Some of the best memes come from India and they get plenty of abuse on the site...

[0]: https://youtu.be/qCj6YNIpqmA?t=123

> Where is this idea coming from that black or women are somehow special cases that need to be handled with care

All people should be handled with care. It's basic empathy. History gives you context that can assist in empathizing with black people and women.

> plenty of people around the world have been killed, enslaved, displaced, humiliated and any number of things

Part of the reason slavery matters so much in the United States is because there are still vestiges of it in all of our political / social / and cultural lives. It's been a part of the U.S. from the beginning and the country has done a piss-poor job of rectifying the situation.

Your comment lacks any perspective on history which in turn affects how we treat fellow people.

If you look at my comment history I've made this exact point about politics. I agree with you. 4chan as a whole isn't any more racist than any other forum. The boards are separated by topics just like reddit for example. My purpose behind my comment was simply saying if you avoid the parts you don't like (exactly how you do on the internet in general, stormfront is a thing), you don't experience that toxicity. I rarely see racism on the boards I browse. And I'd say I see a lot more racism on average on reddit.

I see what you mean. But minorities always just "ignore it" - but that doesn't mean it doesn't affect them. It's how folks are frequently taught to cope. Even if you're staying in more of the "safe" boards, I imagine you're always worried that someone you're interacting with doesn't.

Why would anyone posting on an anonymous imageboard be worried about people making negative comments towards them, anonymously? Your fellow anonymous users only know about you what you choose to share in your posts, and unlike reddit or HN, you don't have a persistent identity.

Because it tells you that's what "society" thinks of you. And that will affect your day-to-day life.

It affects folks in the same way learning that a lot of folks on Reddit/HN like to Haskell. "Oh hey I didn't know Haskell was so popular"

But "you" are not "you" when you post on an anonymous imageboard. Most boards don't even have poster IDs, so you can't even distinguish individuals with multiple posts in the same thread. You're just seeing a bunch of posts from random people who could even be replying to themselves, and you have no way of knowing, unless you obsessively check the "unique IPs in this thread" number as new posts flow in.

I post on HN with my real name, but you use a pseudonym. Nevertheless, your pseudonym has a posting history and karma number attached to it, so anything you post will "stick with you" in a persistent manner. Discussions somewhat resemble real-life discussion because one can track who's saying what, what everyone's said in the past, and so forth. If I flame you, my post probably gets deleted and I might even get banned, because that's how this community has decided to moderate itself.

Anonymous imageboards like 4chan are wholly different beasts altogether. If I post something foolish here on HN, perhaps talking out of my ass, saying something incorrect, I'd get downvotes and comments telling me why I'm wrong. You might even remember my handle as "that one guy who said the dumb incorrect thing one time" next time you see it. on 4chan, when you make a dumb post and everyone dogpiles on you, calling you out for your idiocy and calling you bad names, you can just close the tab and move on in your life. People aren't attacking YOU, they're attacking Post #418317258, and its author has closed the tab and permanently disassociated himself from it.

>But minorities always just "ignore it" - but that doesn't mean it doesn't affect them.

Everyone has to go to school, the park, etc, and I pay the same tax so having an environment that is pleasant for everyone is a required property. I can't ignore someone shouting to me insulting slurs for who I am. But no one has to go to 4chan, if someone feels offended they can just not visit it.

I would quote "Shit my dad says" on this: "Don't focus on the one guy who hates you. You don't go to the park and set your picnic down next to the only pile of dog shit."

Given the Alexa ranking of 4chan lots of women and non white people use the site so no need to imagine it because it's happening.

Yes I am aware. It's a rhetorical device. As in, "you're forgetting about all the women and black people who use 4chan" - because they do use the site, and their opinions about being called the n-word or "bitches" or being asked to show their breasts matter as well.

I don't think the overlap between 4chan users and people that install the Alexa toolbar is large enough for those statistics to be accurate

On the internet nobody knows you’re a dog.

But you do.

Right.

But let's go /pol/ for a hot sec. Oh hey! Ctrl-F says there's 5 occurrences of the n-word (Hard -r too!).

I'm not black, but I imagine that just ignoring stuff like that really gets to you after awhile. Here is a forum where people actively demean others based on the color of their skin, and not only is it normal, but if you're going to visit you need to make sure no one knows that they're actually black. So should they just pretend to be white?

/pol/ is also filled with black nationalists, like NOI/Farrakhan supporters. That's the enigma of 4chan is literally everybody from every group is posting there instead of censorship that ensures only one ideology. By 'ignore what doesn't interest you', I assume that means don't visit the containment boards filled with rampant racism and trolling, you won't find holocaust denial or persistent racist threads on the other boards. It's the same how newsgroups work or discord chat channels work, some are moderated better than others.

And because there are black nationalists, the experience of white users of the site and black users of the site are exactly the same?

I am simply saying that if you're black, you're affected by the discourse on 4chan much differently than you would be if you are white. A few black nationalists is a lot different than the sea of n-word use, and it affects folks much, much differently.

Not every black user of 4chan is North American though, I assume it doesn't affect them because they post there regularily. Israelis also routinely post there despite it being a cesspool of anti-semitism. Again it's akin to discord chat groups. There's racist chat groups run by neo-nazis and there's moderated groups that ban for racism.

There was also that Shia LeBouf incident, where black and hispanic members of /pol/ from NYC showed up to disrupt his political performance art thing he was live streaming. These people exist, contrary to our political assumptions, the world is a stange place.

I also feel this is the reason that 8ch spinoff went down in quality so quickly. The infinite boards concept caused users to split off when their views were challenged instead of being forced to defend them on the common board

> You seem to believe that folks can just ignore being called the n-word day-in and day-out as if it doesn't really affect them.

They can't? Almost no matter who you are, somebody somewhere is musing about your death, if you can't handle that in words, I doubt you could live much, regardless of your identifiable characteristics.

> if you can't handle that in words, I doubt you could live much, regardless of your identifiable characteristics.

I really cannot wrap my mind around the lack of empathy required to say "if you can't handle it" to people being called racist slurs. I presume you have never been called a racist slur. I presume you have never been demonized for your skin color - how can you even begin to know what that's like?

Ignoring the hatred that people on 4chan have for black people is not trivial - obviously this is more affecting for a person if they're black.

Have you read any testimonials about racism, or how it's made folks feel, or anything like that? There's many books out there, and I think your lack of empathy comes from ignorance. Reading some first-hand experience may make it more clear.

Not to defend racism, but you'll find that pretty much every race that's not 2D gets shit on when you're on 4chan. That's just part of being a moderator-lite website. The entire idea is you shouldn't bring your real life onto the site, you'll find people ready and able to tear down anything for incredibly inane reasons. Why is it that it's so prevalent is an excellent question; why do people resort to such strong racist/sexist/divisive opinions when they get to have a mask?

Most people are not racist/sexist when given a mask, the people who are go to /b/ or /pol/, and in the process get further radicalized.

Part of 4chan's whole game is claiming that "everyone is racist with a mask" in order to justify "I'm racist with a mask".

What's ironic here is how conservative your position is: defending the status quo that the n-word must reflexively provoke outrage. People are imploring you to accept that times are changing and the word is being disassociated from hate, yet you're sticking to the 40 year old definition because "that's just how it always was".

Doesn't that remind you of something?

???

I don't care how conservative my opinion is. I don't equate the quality of arguments and opinions with which adjectives can be used to describe them.

Also please point to which decade it was where the n-word was "disassociated from hate". When has the word not been used in a hateful way?

Calling people the n-word provokes outrage because it is an outrageous thing to do. The word has a history and we all know it.

> People are imploring you to accept that times are changing and the word is being disassociated from hate

The only people imploring me of this are random folks on the Internet. I talk to black folks all the time in the real world, and you know what? It's still not ok.

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