Gordon wrote:Have there been any racist issues on this forum that haven't been properly dealt with?
Have there been any issues that could have been avoided if the rules to this forum were spelled out differently?
I'm not trying to be a dick myself, but if this forum actually has any barriers set up that discourage diversity, I'd be personally open to suggestions by people that faced these barriers as to what they'd like changed.
I think all I can really say is that we've always had very few nonwhite members, for various reasons that probably mostly have nothing to do with racism. But I know we have at least one less now than we used to have because of something that happened on here. That is not to say that the forum is racist, I'm just suggesting that sometimes it may be better/nicer to actively and explicitely stand for something than to just sit back and see that things are okay and there are in theory no barriers.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying something is wrong with the forum or the way it's run. I just feel that we could try to make it even better. Not just the forum, but the whole 'community'. It's really not meant as a dig at anyone; I'm just seeing an opportunity. It's interesting to me that every now and then this question pops up again (not just here), "Is indiepop racist?", and then mostly white people agree that it's not really, and we move on. But the two or three times so far that I've witnessed a POC bring up the courage to suggest otherwise, a lot of those same white people got really pissed off. It can happen, of course. But if we genuinly do believe that we are welcoming everyone into this community, sometimes a little bit extra effort may be needed, or can at least be a nice gesture. It may just, really just maybe, make people think and most importantly, make marginalised people feel more welcome and a bit safer. Will it change anything? Will more POC suddenly find their way onto anorak or into the community? Very possibly not. Who knows. We can have an attitude of "It says nowhere here that POC are not welcome. If a POC finds their way onto this forum and they run into some kind of trouble, we'll deal with it properly." Or we can do something else. It's really not up to me. That's why I started this thread.
I know anorak does not equal the indiepop community. It's just a place to start.