Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

In the politics forum, someone posted a pretty racist meme. Multiple people asked him -- politely -- to explain why he posted it. He ignored those requests.

Eventually, a mod came and in advised everyone to ignore the racist poster, and to stop calling him out.

So I guess my question is this: is this the kind of forum where people are allowed to post things suggesting black people are criminals? Are we just supposed to shrug and pretend that's not happening? Am I the asshole for getting offended by explicit racism?

Here's a joke: What do you have when five people sit down to a pleasant dinner with a Nazi? Six Nazis.

Please don't let this become a forum where racism is tolerated.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

I’m here for the same reason as JasonF. It’s the second time this week where I’ve seen someone play coy with words or tweets to say something racist. When I called out the first one he started projecting and gaslighting calling me a troll and when other members pointed out that he was the troll and that his words were racist, he disappeared from the thread.

Now, for a second time this week, another member posted a very racist tweet by Scott Adams at complete face value, not to criticize him but because he agrees with Adams. Other members called him out to explain himself and that member kept posting ignoring the requests to answer for posting a racist comment in this forum. Even though I have that member on ignore, I could see the comment when others quoted him. The moment I raised my voice and called him out to explain the racist tweet, I was told to ignore it. Then everyone else in the thread was told to do the same. So like Jason asked, is this forum going to tolerate racism? Are we supposed to now ignore racist posts? I know many members already reported said post, but the ones that have been scolded publicly are the members that called out the racist post

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

I mostly only lurk now, but I did see that entire exchange. I know moderating is a thankless volunteer gig that is extremely challenging, so I have a lot of grace for the moderators, but I confess I'm utterly baffled by the moderator action in this particular case. As far as I can tell, all those asking for the poster of the meme to explain his intent in posting it were following the rules of the forum: they called out the post for its content and asked for explanation from the poster. The poster willfully ignored those requests for explanation, as evidenced by his continued posting of other memes and engagement in discussion about them, but not the meme in question.

The moderator's subsequent directive, in short, was "stop hounding the poster of that meme and get back to posting more memes." I understand the desire to maintain peace but that directive seems utterly antithetical to the following stated goal in the Rules & Expectations sticky (italicized emphasis mine):
I would argue that the very existence of the Memes thread is antithetical to that stated goal, but I lost that argument long ago. If the Memes thread has to exist, then in the spirit of that stated goal, there should be a clear expectation that posting a meme in that thread is also committing to participate in good faith discussion about the content of the meme. Otherwise, what is the justification for that thread's existence within the context of the stated goal? In my estimation, the person whose actions were least aligned with that stated goal was the person who originally posted the meme and then ignored questions about it that were presented in an open-ended manner. The questions only got slightly less polite after it became clear they were being willfully ignored, but even then I would argue the tone of the questioning remained civil, while the willful silence from the original poster remained uncivil, or to frame it more directly, not at all "in a manner which supports discussion of these things."

Racism, whether blatant or veiled, should not go unchecked on this forum. I believe the best way to keep it in check is to encourage civil discussion that may include challenging others in ways that stay within the stated rules when conscious or subconscious biases are apparent. That is what was being attempted by those raising questions about the meme in this case and it was oddly squashed. I am guessing that perhaps the moderation focus was on avoiding further escalation, which is somewhat understandable. But the lack of balance in not publicly calling for the original poster to engage in good faith discussion while publicly berating everyone else for "hounding" him is a pretty rough miss, in my opinion (admittedly, a miss I could also easily have had if I were in the difficult role of being a moderator).

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

Adding my voice to the people who think it’s Not Okay that the mod response to this was to shut down criticism of the offending tweet, while seemingly no action was taken against the individual who posted it.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

Thanks for summing up my thoughts so eloquently. I realize I mostly lurk here, so my contributions won’t be missed. But it’s clear that this particular poster is wilfully pushing the boundaries of what’s acceptable, and by chastising the people who called it out I think KurtD missed the mark here (unless there’s some further mod discussion/action forthcoming that we’re not privy to).

I realize that this forum has drifted to the left significantly over the last few years, and I don’t want it to turn into an echo chamber. But there’s a mile of difference between espousing conservative viewpoints and trolling the forum.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

Maybe memes need some content other than just the meme, like videos do?

If you hesitate to explain why you like a particular meme, maybe it's best not to share it.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

Is directly posting a link to what somebody wrote on Twitter a MEME?

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

Not really, but there’s a catch-all thread for memes and social media posts in the Politics forum.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

Mostly I have no problem with people just posting memes or tweets without commentary because usually, they speak for themselves.

This one in particular spoke for itself, and it said "I think black people are criminals." I don't think it's unreasonable to ask the person who posted it why they thought that was a tweet worth sharing. Maybe the poster wanted us all to see how racist the tweet was because he was disgusted by it. Or maybe he thought it was funny to imply black people are criminals. I suspect the latter, but since the poster refused to engage, we were left with a racist tweet just parked in the middle of the thread.

The poster has now posted another meme making fun of Rudy Giuliani's infamous press conference at the Four Seasons landscaping company, and included a long-winded description of the fact that he's making fun of Giuliani's error. That explanation wasn't necessary and appears done solely to troll the forum. So I guess it's all a big joke to him, and I don't think political discussion -- even in the meme thread -- benefits from people who think other posters exist solely to be a target of trolling.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

I have to say, the whole "lets just sweep it under the rug instead of talking about it" stance was more shocking to me than the actual post.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

Very disappointing response, and I can only hope that further discussion regarding the post is taking place behind the scenes.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

I would like to state that I asked for an explanation SPECIFICALLY to let the poster in question defend why he posted it. There was even someone else jumping in to say they didn't take it in a racist way, which is certainly something that can be discussed as well.

"Just ignore him" is NOT a solution. I am anti-ignore button to the extreme.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

Yep, while I found jfoobar’s interpretation very generous to Adams (it seems pretty clear to me that the tweet is reveling in racist stereotypes, not bemoaning unequal treatment of African-Americans by the justice system) at least that’s a take. Even if it presupposes that black voters would feel that Trump is being unfairly persecuted and feel some kinship to him on that basis.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

I am as well. And I get that the mods want to be careful not to penalize people for simply having unpopular views, but the attitude seems to be "Anything goes as long as you don't explicitly insult another poster, and it's incumbent on everyone else to deal with it." I mean, if someone were to post blatantly white supremacist propaganda -- the kind of stuff you'd find on the dark web -- would the mods' attitude be "just ignore it?" I would hope not. I know it can be a hard line to draw, but I think the mods need to make an effort to draw that line, not leave it up to the posters to pretend it's not happening.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

I am not in anyway defending the poster or Scott Adams, but the tweet in question didn't strike me as racist. That relies on the assumption that a Trump supporter is the one making the comment. If you think Trump is being unfairly and unjustly targeted by law enforcement, then the comment indicates a belief that black people are also unfairly and unjustly targeted by law enforcement. Or at least that's how I read it.

That said, if the comment was made by a never-Trumper conservative, I would take it as stating that both Trump and black people claim to be unfairly and unjustly targeted by law enforcement, when in actuality they deserve it.

Regardless of that, I also think it's perfectly fine for members to call out such posts as potentially problematic and ask for an explanation. And if it becomes clear that the poster has no intent of offering an explanation, I'm fine with people assuming the worst of their intentions.

I am anti-ignore button for anyone who wants to have good faith discussions and displays a modicum of intellectual curiosity, regardless of what I think of their actual opinions. I am very pro-ignore button for people whose behavior suggests their intent, either some or all of the time, is simply to piss off and waste the time of those who disagree with them. And I give credit to the rules and mods here for doing a good job of winnowing most of the latter from the forum.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

This is a particularly "give them the benefit of the doubt" hot take, that falls apart very quickly, because it relies on the assumption that Trumpers think "black people are unfairly and unjustly targeted by law enforcement". Does Scott Adams believe that? I'm very skeptical.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

I want to say I appreciate people taking the discussion to Feedback, thank you.

Okay...

First off, no.

Second, an update: the post in question has been deemed racist and deleted.

Third, a little perspective:

I didn't see the original post and questions about it that kept coming all day and I didn't check my mod email until late that night. I'm working from home this week, sick with COVID-19, trying to stay awake to meet deadlines. I love ya, but I'm not here all day. That night I'm hitting the pillow and check my mod email, boom, tons of RTPs from throughout the day. Now I have to try to go through the posts and figure out exactly what is going on and which subsequent posts are germane to the situation and what action(s) to take if any. Bonus, some of the reported posts get a bit nasty toward mods, like "how dare you let this happen" type stuff, with a dash of "if you do Action A, you clearly side with People B" thrown in for good measure. That's always fun. I guess people can do that. I almost prefer that in a PM RTP than the (recently increasing in frequency) public "where are the mods?!" type posts, but whatever. A big part of me thinks, okay, I will deal with this in the A.M. I'm not sure how immediate a response people here can honestly expect from volunteers, but sometimes it takes a little time, people. If you can't be okay with that, I don't know what to tell you.

Then our newest mod makes a call and the thread continues to blow up, mostly with critique. Critique is fine and I can say healthy critique (when it is sincere and not personal) has made me a better mod. And, he's four months on the job, cut him some slack. He didn't ask for me to say that but I'll say it as someone who still feels like the new kid after four years. And I'm really not going to do my best work at 10:30pm at night beyond "take it to feedback" and we can talk about it there, you know?

I can see how it looks like the team just let something sit there all day. I can see how stop "hounding" a poster feels like sweep it under the rug. But that isn't always the case. Sometimes, "I don't want to see [this behavior]" means "Okay, we're looking into it, we need time, hold on." I've made some posts like that here and there but not as much lately because they often get met with "Anything yet?!" posts from people who need things done on their timeline. Then, when things get resolved, those same people don't come back and say, "Thanks for addressing this and sorry if I came off as impatient." That's a bummer. But okay, in the future, I can resume trying to do more "Okay, we're looking into it, we need time, hold on" posts and if people need something more spelled out like that, I can commit to that. That's reasonable. And along with that, people need to give us time on stuff, even if it seems cut and dried to you. Again, we're not paid staff on a set rotation schedule. We're not perfect. We're human volunteers.

Bonus Thought of the Day: In the same three-week window, we're being told we're both 1. cracking down on misogyny too much but 2. not cracking down on racism enough. I don't even know what to do with that.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

DVDTalk assumes so called Trumpers are all racist white males, but many Trumpers are black and latino. I've seen black americans even rally behind calling BLM a racist movement and there is even a whole Latinos For Trump slogan I've seen latinos wearing shirts of and such in public.

You may find it surprising but there is actually a lot of Mexican-American citizens across the country that supported Trump and his wall. According to NYTimes in the following link, 1 out of every 3 Latino citizens supported Trump in the 2020 election. A 2017 Gallup poll, for example, found that 67% of Hispanic people said they worried a great deal or a fair amount about illegal immigration - higher than the proportion of non-Hispanic whites (59%) who answered the same way.

Also according to BBC, Trump actually gained a fairly significant increase in Black votes in 2020 compared to the previous election.

Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/02/u...ters-2020.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54972389

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

Yes yes, we know, there are many fine people on both sides. The question is, what was Scott's purpose of tweeting that? Was he really trying to bring attention to the plight of Black Americans and how they are being unjustly targeted by police? Or do you think he was simply trolling, trying to get a rise of out woke dems, so he can say "I'm not racist, YOU'RE the racist one for reading racism into my racist post!" ?

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

I appreciate your work here and this post detailing a little on the rationale of the decisions being made and about the behind the scenes communication. Also, hope you get better soon. This type of message gives a little more transparency about everything, specially that this is a volunteer job and that you guys are assessing the situation before taking any action, which is completely understandable.

For future situations like this, it would serve well for the whole community here to post something like “we are looking into this situation and we’ll make a decision accordingly”. A short message like this in a derailed thread can calm emotions down and let everyone know that you guys are working on it.

I also want to put KurtD’s ignore comment into context. Several months ago I was suspended from the forum for 2 months because of an exchange with PerryD that went downhill. It was suggested/recommended to me by PM and email that when I came back I put Perry on my ignore list so we don’t cross paths and prevent any further verbal altercations that may lead to another suspension or banning. I felt that Kurt’s comment in that thread referred to this and not to actually ignore the comment like everyone else felt it meant. It’s pretty obvious that the post/tweet/comment was out of line and what many like myself consider racist. Like I mentioned in that post, I only saw PerryD’s post when it was quoted, something that the forum software can’t fix. Of course I was enraged by the post and felt that the comment to stop asking Perry to explain himself was out of pocket but looking back it was the mods asking us to not derail the thread further and that they were looking into it. Either way, everything goes back to communication, something that can always be improved in this forum.

Still, I hope that racists posts and subsequent trolling about it aren’t acceptable behavior here because if it is, this will certainly open the DVDTalk to the nastiness we see on social media.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

Honestly I don't know anything about Scott and I don't regularly visit Twitter either. I wasn't trying to debate his motives behind said tweet. It very well could've been meant to be racist and to get a rise out of folks. In my experience that is mostly what Twitter boils down to: hot takes meant to get a reaction one way or the other. I was only pointing out that not all Trumpers are white males despite the assumptions typically made to that degree and that personally I don't find it a reach or to think there are conservatives or trumpers out there who genuinely agrees or believes that blacks are unjustly targeted by police and yet it was being called a "hot take" in this thread that such an assumption could actually be reality. At the end of the day had the poster expressed their views as to why they posted what they did, it would've certainly cleared things up. I don't disagree there.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

Don't defend the man if you don't know anything about him. He's nothing but a right wing troll these days. I will admit, there are some trumpers who I would probably give the benefit of the doubt to (though my mind is blanking on that) but Scott is DEFINITELY not one of them.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

??? I never attempted to defend Scott or what he said. My response was specifically towards your response of maxfishers take in which he explained how someone could read that tweet and not take it as racist, in which you claimed would be a hot take that easily fell apart.

That in no way attempts to defend or explain how Scott himself meant it... Only how someone, could read it and not knowing how Scott thinks and thus not knowing how the tweet was intended it to be taken, actually come away with the thought that it wasn't meant to be racist.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

If I could weigh in on this : I took that Tweet to mean "Black people are unfairly targeted by law enforcement. Now Trump is as well. Maybe they'll start supporting him now because they're kindred spirits." which I don't agree with and don't think is funny, but doesn't strike me as blatantly racist either. Certainly not in the way that people are taking it in this thread.
As I totally off base in that interpretation?

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

I'll give you this: Is it possible that if someone read that tweet in a vacuum that they wouldn't realize Scott's real intent? Sure.
Do I believe the person who posted that was in said vaccum when he posted it? Nah

*edit
I probably replied more about this than it deserved, mainly because I'm just bored at home. Bottom line for me is: Never give right wing trolls (or the people who repost them) the benefit of the doubt.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

Story, I appreciate the transparency and explanation as well. I do recognize that the mods are all volunteers, and appreciate what you do, even when I think you get specific calls wrong. I completely agree with Red Hood that a simple "Hey, we're on it" message would help cool things down, though I know that can be easier said than done because of the whole volunteer thing and that you all have lives beyond parking in the forum and monitoring it 24/7.

I do think there's a reflexive reaction of the mods (at least in the Politics forum) to rely on posters to separate themselves with the ignore feature in lieu of penalizing posters who repeatedly post "bad" content. And again, I recognize that mods are in a tough position because you don't want to punish people for having unpopular views and you don't want to turn the forum into an echo chamber. But I do hope the mod team has some internal discussions to make sure you're calibrating correctly in terms of how much you want to moderate outlandish comments vs. telling everyone "just ignore the troll."

Anyway, I hope you're feeling better, COVID-wise!

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

The guy comes in hear and likes posts but can't bother to discuss? Geez. :)

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

Thanks for posting this. To add on to what story said:
Different mods are definitely going to have different reactions to various content. I mean look at the reactions in this very thread. I went back to the post in question and honestly didn't even understand the Tweet. So if I'd seen it first, I wouldn't even know if it was racist or not because I just straight-up don't understand it. I can't even determine what the joke is supposed to be because I can't understand the logic of the sentence.

When there is stuff like that, mods DO typically discuss it in the private forum. And whenever you feel a post is objectionable, please do utilize the "Report Post" button.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

story Thanks for all that you shared and all that you do. I just wanted to say a few things in response:

• IMO, you should not be expected to moderate at all when you're sick with Covid. Hope you are on the mend!
  
• Armchair moderating for all of us, especially after the fact, is easy and real moderating is hard. I 100% acknowledge that (and tried to do so in my post in this thread).
  
• I wanted to clarify that for whatever it's worth, I had zero concerns about the timeline of moderation in this situation and my only concerns were with the content of the moderation that occurred publicly as explained in my earlier post here. Those concerns were not intended to be an ungrateful indictment of Kurt D, but rather a (hopefully thoughtful) explanation of what I understand the intent of that subforum to be and why the public moderator action seemed very inconsistent with that intent, for the sake of ultimately improving situations that might occur like this in the future. If it was out of bounds or poorly expressed or simply not fully informed, I apologize.
  
• In the spirit of my earlier post, I'd like to humbly suggest that we add the following rule to that subforum: "When you post something in the memes and social media posts thread, you are implicitly expressing a willingness to engage in good faith discussion about the meme. Failure to engage in such discussion when it is pursued in good faith may result in moderator action." I feel like if a rule like that was in place, the initial moderator action would have been cut and dry in this case - something along the lines of, "[INSERT MEMBER NAME HERE], in accordance with the forum rules, please respond to the questions being asked about the meme you posted. If your next post on the forums is not a response to those questions, your original post with the meme will be deleted."
  

I could go into more explanation of why this particular instance sparked concern for me and how it's tied to some of the reasons I only lurk now, but that's probably better left for another time or left unsaid completely, because this isn't about me and doesn't need to be.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

I don't participate in said thread, but I don't really like the idea of "if you post something you have to talk about it if somebody confronts you on it/wants you to etc. or risk mod action" idea. Just seems to open up a bigger kettle fish.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

To be clear, the only "mod action" I'm referring to is deleting the post after it is clear the poster willfully refuses to discuss it in good faith (as in this case, as I see it anyway) and I'm referring specifically to posts in that thread. In my opinion, that's a simpler and less fraught assessment for the moderators to have to make than trying to parse out what is too racist, misogynist, etc to be left alone.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

Mainly, I really am not down for an idea that forces posters to explain their posts or risk mod action, whatever said action may be. That said, I also don't agree with the JUST IGNORE THEM suggestion. Really, I think, this comes down to a few things. If a post is getting sufficient reporting the mods here can certainly get that it is problematic (as opposed to, say, two posters who have continued issues with one another reporting each others posts). The REPORT POST button is here for a reason.

Now, we may not agree with what the mods decisions are in the matter but that is why we have this forum to discuss it.

Making a RULE that states a poster MUST defend/comment/etc. their post seems a bit extreme, IMO. And are we talking about this rule being only for this particular thread? Other threads like it? The forum as a whole? As I said, just seems to open up a whole other kettle of fish.

It's not hard to see how a thread that is predominately created to share images/MEMES (in this instance) could break down into:

POSTER A posts MEME.
POSTER B says: "That seems kind of racist. Can you explain this?"
POSTER A doesn't reply.
POSTER B states: "Hey, man, you gotta' reply. It's the rules!"
POSTER A replies: "Fine. I don't think it's racist. Here's why..."
POSTER B and POSTER C: "It's totally racist, here's why..."
POSTER A: "I've explained myself and don't agree with you"
POSTER B, C, D: "What's wrong with you (followed by passive aggressive remarks insinuating POSTER A is racist)"

and so on and so forth.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

This is my issue with it though. I'm starting from the perspective that a thread for sharing memes shouldn't exist on a political discussion forum in the first place. In my opinion, the meme-ification of political discourse has bred dismissive, judgmental, and ungracious attitudes that are incredibly unhealthy for our political world. So if that thread has to remain, there should at least be a stated expectation that those who post memes in it will engage in good faith discussion about the content of the meme. If discussion devolves into name-calling then the mods have the same cleanup they have to do in countless other discussion threads, so I don't really know why that's a problem.

I realize most others don't share the above perspective and that's fine. I've given my two cents at this point.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

Would the "good faith discussion" rule flow into, say, the Political Cartoon thread?

IMO, the Politics Forum can certainly have their "not so serious threads" like the MEME one for the very reason, I gather, it was created: mainly for humour (as most MEMEs are). Though, as I said, I don't participate in that thread so I could very well be wrong. It does seem the possibly racist tweet posted is, and forgive the following given the tweet in question, a minority in a 1485 posts. Again, I could be wrong here as I certainly go through all 1485 pages.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

I'm glad to see this is being taken seroiosly and there appears to be an open and honest discussion going on here. I really like this forum but don't want to see it turn into a swamp. We all make mistakes and have our own perspective, as IBJole said some of the tweets/memes can be ambiguous and I think KurtD is doing a good job overall but I did find that particular situation to be a bit off the mark. Nobody is perfect but without the mods, this place could devolve very quickly. So thanks to the Mod team for taking the time to make this a better place. :)

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

With the way things are currently in the United States, I can no longer bring myself to chuckle at reductionist or condescending gotcha-isms and that seems to be largely what gets posted in the memes and social media posts thread. It doesn't come off as lighthearted to me and I don't think it's innocuous.

The same could possibly be said of the Political Cartoon thread, but I don't think that's exactly in the same category, since in general most of the political cartoons are done by professionals that are subject to some level of editorial accountability and not just any random person on social media.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

I’m going to be very blunt on this: there’s one specific member who for the most part of his participation on the Political Forum has been a troll. He has played the lines of trolling very well by deliberately using words or memes that could be ambiguous or left to interpretation. In this case, he posted a very racist tweet from a very racist person(Scott Adams) and on a subsequent post, he kinda confirmed that he posted the tweet in agreement with Adams and not for the reasons of “can’t you believe someone will post something so racist for everyone to see”. When the forum member got questioned about his reasoning on posting the racist tweet, he decided to ignore it at first and then decided to troll everyone by over explaining every subsequent post he put on the Meme thread. Of course, all of this being done while dodging the question everyone wanted answered.

To me this is trolling and bad faith behavior on the forum and shouldn’t be tolerated. The racist tweet reminded me of another transphobic tweet that was posted months ago and had a similar reaction. Some people didn’t considered the tweet then transphobic but the majority of people in that thread did. Same here with the racist tweet by Scott Adams. The transphobic tweet was deleted and the poster scolded for posting it.

My point is that none of this should be tolerated and people with a history of trolling really aren’t adding anything to the forum in terms of discussion. I know people don’t want the politics forum to become an echo chamber but this doesn’t mean that it should be tolerating behavior that’s acceptable on today’s conservative side like racism, transphobia, homophobia and misogyny.

I’m going to give a perfect example of how I’ve been seeing things in this forum. Several years ago, a member on this forum called me out for saying the word “cocksucker” in a way that was demeaning. Another member privately messaged me about using the word redneck in the same way. In both cases I apologized for my behavior and posting and decided to not use those words either in my online or personal life as they can hurt people that don’t deserve this treatment. I feel that there are some members that instead of analyzing the situation and saying to themselves, “man, this hurts innocent people “ will instead double down on the insults and say them even more. I know they are following tge examples of their leaders like Trump and Ted Cruz but that doesn’t mean that behavior should be accepted in this forum. It never was before 2016 and it shouldn’t be accepted now even if social media and a large group of people shrugs and continues with this behavior

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

In my experience DVDTalk has been an echo chamber for a long time.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

All the contentious and outspoken conservatives/religious types/etc. were rode out on a rail long ago. Especially the cocksucking rednecks.

Goddamn it I still miss wm lopez.

Re: Is blatant racism OK on DVDTalk?
 

In the early-aughts, this forum was more of an echo chamber for conservatives, albeit not nearly as one-sided as it is now. However, if you have, on one side, the MAGAts, and on the other side everyone who supports Biden or is to his left, with no apparently rational conservatives left, it's no surprise the MAGA faction stays largely silent or has disappeared. Because they would be made to look like the racist imbeciles they are.