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isladar

ISLABLAG: IN WHICH AUNTIE IS REVEALED TO BE LITERALLY HITLER

Rating: 15 votes, 3.93 average.
[Fade-in on a typical day in Darkest Carpathia; upon the Throne of Skulls Auntie Isla is browsing' some forums, bannin' some jerks. There is a jump cut to the computer screen, where we read:]

Quote Originally Posted by some jackass
Its like nazi germany up in this piece
[Camera returns to our glorious mediatrix]

"It warms the heart to see the adoration and, indeed, admiration of my subjects," I say, monologuing as I'm wont to do. "But such statements strike a chord -- what if they're just saying such things? What if, and it pains me to even consider it, they're exaggerating, and the forums aren't actually akin to the government of the National Socialists?"

[Close up of my awesome face, looking concerned]

"How," I ask, in a somewhat rhetorical manner but with every intention of answering my own query, "can I absolutely and utterly ruin everyone's fun? And not just sort-of ruin, but enact, with malice aforethought, such heinous and draconian laws that the righteous among us will have no other choice but to cry out that BG has become, without a hint of hyperbole, Nazi-fucking-Germany?"

[Pause for effect]

"The answer, of course, were I to truly wish to bring about the rebirth of the Third Reich … an 'Islareich', if you will … (note to self, write that down) would be to do exactly as that terrible monster Adolf Hitler did, and begin to mercilessly ban people for saying racist, sexist, and other hateful things! YES! Ban people for racism! JUST LIKE HITLER!"

[maniacallaughter.wav]

[Fade scene]


____

Hello jerks, dears, friends who are dear jerks, farty babies, &c.! On this the glorious dawn of our ETERNAL REVOLUTION, I greet you! NEW RULES have come down from on high to get up in your business! There could even be FABULOUS PRIZES*! Oh this is exciting. So GET THE FUCK DOWN, SHUT THE FUCK UP, and get ready to get your dome-piece peeped by the realest of real talk. TO WIT:

RACIST, SEXIST, AND HATEFUL LANGUAGE IS NOT TOLERATED ON THESE FORUMS


Note to self: should have blingee'd that shit.




*There are no prizes.


For the vast majority of the userbase of these forums, this won't be an issue, because you don't say hateful, disgusting shit. Unfortunately, there is a loud minority of shitfuckers who do say hateful, disgusting shit, and make our forums entirely hostile to anyone who is even a remotely decent human being! Fuck them! They're assholes, and they're getting banned! Yay! Because, and this fills me with ineffable joy to share with you, NO ONE HAS TO TOLERATE INTOLERANCE!!! God that's so fucking rad.

There is an unfortunate tendency to think it's only racist when you say "nigger" with intent to be hurtful. This is what a dumb baby thinks! Racism is racism whether you're just kidding, saying it around 'cool' people [read: racists], or are pig-ignorant! HATE SPEECH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH INTENT.

So what about these new rules? How do they totally ruin everything awesome about BG (which I guess in this instance would mean racism and misogyny? wow that's fucked up, wtf is wrong with racist assholes)? Let's take a look at the new rules, and then do a Q&A so that dumb babies who think hate speech is awesome can get relentlessly mocked for being shitasses.

Quote Originally Posted by NAZI HITLER RULES FOR NAZIS
The Human Decency Clause

The use of language or posts that deliberately discriminate against, insult, or demean an individual or group is forbidden. We cannot stop you from being an ignorant bigot in the privacy of your own home, but your right to express such opinions is trumped by our right not to be exposed to them. If you cannot participate in discourse without relying on hateful language, you will be banned from this site.

There are a very few circumstances where arguments may be made that certain offensive terms are used in a humorous context. In such cases the user may or may not be banned or infracted. This will be completely and utterly subjective and based on the mod reading the post at the time. Use at your own peril.

The Catch-All:

Shitty posts are against the rules, even if they do not explicitly ‘break’ a rule. Don’t be a rules-lawyer. If you find yourself typing “but what rule, exactly, did I violate”, it’s this one.

Spam:

Forums marked as 'spam' are granted some degree of leeway in this regard. Spam is the cool place to hang out. You can find most of the cool people there. In Spam you can just chill and do whatever and totally relax. "Take it easy" is the Spam motto, for example, that's how laid back it is there. Show up if you want to have a good time. Another good reason to show up is if you want to hang out with friends. Note: while leeway is available within spam, it is not outside of it. Stop being racist shitbags.
Seems pretty cut-and-dry, I think. If it makes sense to you, congratulations! You're a decent human being who's pretty cool. If these rules bring to mind objections, but-what-abouts, how-comes, or thats-not-fairs, FUCK YOU, you're likely a whiny shitass baby who thinks racist, sexist, and other kinds of hateful language constitutes a valid contribution to society. Also you're probably a fuckface, an asshole, and a shitty, useless, cowardly person and no one except other shitfuckers will miss you! Holy fuck this is cathartic to write out, I can't even tell you. So let's do a Q&A !!!


QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS FOR THE FRIGHTFULLY STUPID

1. I'm an ignorant baby, how do I know that something I'm saying is racist/sexist/&c.?
Good question! If you're a dumb baby. Honestly it's the year of our Lord 2013, you cannot seriously be this stupid to not know when you're saying something fucking awful. But let's pretend, for a minute, that you are in fact frightfully stupid.

If you find yourself making a sweeping generalization about a type of person, you're almost 100% guaranteed to be saying something fucking disgusting and awful. So: don't!

2. That kind of self-awareness is far beyond my capabilities. Will you write out a detailed list of what is and isn't hate speech so I can follow the letter of the law and not the spirit?

No, fuck you! It's not my job, or anyone else's, to teach you how not to be a shitfucker. It's actually your job to not act like a shitass racist! And if you fuck up you're banned!

3. Why is this a problem when [other thing] is still around?

Waiting for there to be no problems to take care of problems is really fucking stupid when you think about it. The existence of a worse thing does not obviate our duty to deal with a (maybe) lesser bad thing.

4. Why is this suddenly being enforced now? It's never been that big of a deal before!

Man, this one sucks, because I honestly have to say that I and a lot of others were content to ignore it. In my case, at least, it was because I was being kind of a coward. I was allowing myself to be cowed by shitty people because I didn't want to get shit on myself. And then I realized that fucking sucked, and that if I was so uncomfortable with it as a goddamn admin, it had to be a million times worse for someone who can't ban people with utter impunity! So I needed to step up and tell people to stop saying shitty racist shit. Plus it feels really good to ban shitfucking racists!

5. I don't want to get banned!

Don't say hateful shit you dumbass. Jesus fuck it's not hard.

6. This is going to ruin [my favorite thread / forum]! Also, free speech!

Good! Because 'ruin' in this case means making the forums available and welcoming to people who want to participate, regardless of their background, gender, or sexual orientation. That is my favorite kind of ruining !!!

As far as free speech goes, you absolutely have the freedom to say whatever you want! However free speech does not protect you from the social consequences of your speech, which can include being banned for being a fucking shitass, or called out on being an ignorant fuckface! Both of which will happen!

7. What should I do if I see someone using hateful language on the forums?

Holy shit an actual question! If you see someone using hateful language, report the post! Feel free to also tell them that their language is fucking disgusting, because remember: NO ONE HAS TO TOLERATE INTOLERANCE.


In conclusion,
Love,
Auntie Isla

p.s. fuck asshole racists/sexists and people who apologize for them

Comments

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  1. galkaindaclub -
    galkaindaclub's Avatar
    I also hope you weren't taking it as a personal attack as that was not my intent, but i see you are being self reflective about it and I appreciate that. My point was: I guess I would of felt more comfortable seeing this handled as a group effort that we should all strive for and not tolerate instead of an attacking tone. I'm sure you like many of the people you banned even if you were hurt by their words and actions. A lot of them come through big whether it is forum donations or even personal matters (callisto glasses fundraiser was awesome) or just making it a funny, interesting community.

    Quote Originally Posted by isladar
    Thanks for this!

    Perhaps you're right, and saying bigoted things doesn't automatically make one a bigot. On the other hand, what advantage is there to raising the bar for qualifying as a bigot? Consideration for the feelings of assholes? That's not a terribly high priority for me, to be honest.

    As for my conduct in the past, you're right! I've said absolutely hateful and reprehensible shit. Hell, I remember when the rule was very first put down (by Nikkei, which is so interesting to me now that I think of it), that I objected because I wanted to keep saying "cunt". It was a hilarious word, why shouldn't I be able to say it? Who could possibly be offended by a stupid word? It doesn't mean anything. This is stupid! In fact, I said a lot of awful, misogynist shit because I was an ignorant asshole, and because I was doing what a lot of women do on the internet -- being just as bad, or worse, as the men, so as to be included by them. We've all seen what happens to gals on BG who don't adopt a hyper-misogynistic attitude, I think. Of course, constructing the 'Auntie' idea was a really good solution. It allowed me to be recognized as a woman, but at least partially cut off avenues for people to devalue, otherize, and sexualize me. Plus it's a nice nickname!

    I also started to grow the fuck up. It sucks that it often takes being hurt yourself before you can perceive the hurt of others, but there it is. My objections to the inconvenience of adjusting my language (and holy fuck it is so petty when it's laid out like that, isn't it?) were because I had no comprehension of the possibility of others' feelings and experiences. Once I had a bit more of an idea of what being the target of that kind of hate was like, I started to actually pay attention to the shit that came out of my mouth. And it was horrifying, because I could understand what it felt like. That sucked. It sucks like whoa to realize that you're an awful person.

    When you are told, or maybe realize, that you're an awful person doing awful things, you have two options: You can lash out, avoid self-examination, double-down on your shitty behaviour, and hide behind the behaviour of other awful people to try and justify the continuation of your bullshit. Or you can stop, look at what you're doing, and resolve to change.
  2. hey -
    hey's Avatar
    It does not seem to apply retroactively?
  3. isladar -
    isladar's Avatar
    It should, damnit.

    edit: So it's applying to all new bans, but not retroactively to old bans because the old image is still on the ftp and getting pointed to. I manually changed the more recent ones, but have asked Ragns to delete or move the old gif.
    Updated 2013-11-05 at 13:04 by isladar
  4. hey -
    hey's Avatar
    There we go. Much better
  5. Sonomaa -
    Sonomaa's Avatar
    its also a caching thing, it should be updating for everyone at some point in the future.
  6. SephYuyX -
    SephYuyX's Avatar
    People from the UK find the banning of the word cunt offensive. That and twat are like the goto name callers.
  7. isladar -
    isladar's Avatar
  8. ringthree -
    ringthree's Avatar
    FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK I FUCKING LOVE ISLA!!!!!!!!!

    All hail and what not.
  9. Mina -
    Mina's Avatar
    All hail Auntie.

    Seriously was amused throughout the entire read.
  10. Seraph -
    Seraph's Avatar
    Changes seem legit, but did I seriously read an argument that the word 'asshole' is a gender based insult? Someone fell asleep in biology. Hard. That or a case of "my opinion makes it so".
  11. isladar -
    isladar's Avatar
    Yeah I didn't find that particular line compelling either. Which is a shame, because the rest of her argument is solid.
  12. Akiyama -
    Akiyama's Avatar
    ""The answer, of course, were I to truly wish to bring about the rebirth of the Third Reich … an 'Islareich', if you will""

    I'm curious. Do you have some sort of Hitler-like persona buried within you somewhere? You .. use an awful lot of references to the Third Reich/Hitler related things, yet you quote someone who was 'dumb enough to reference this new change to nazi Germany' as a jackass. I mean I get it. It's a funny persona to have and all, kinda like my shitty LAWL CAKE YO and all that (I actually bake, and it's not people), but.. really. I just felt the need to bring it up out of honest curiosity.

    Thanks.

    Note: I'm not actually referring to you as such, but more asking if this whole act/persona of yours is something actually serious, or are you doing it for the lulz. No actual offense is being made.
  13. Tomiko -
    Tomiko's Avatar
    "There is an unfortunate tendency to think it's only racist when you say "nigger" with intent to be hurtful. This is what a dumb baby thinks! Racism is racism whether you're just kidding, saying it around 'cool' people [read: racists], or are pig-ignorant! HATE SPEECH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH INTENT. "

    I find this to by hypocritical considering the majority of your post is comparing the new rules and such to Hitler/Nazis. I can understand (and agree with) your reasoning for starting to enforce the rules more, but I just feel that the message could have been delivered better since it comes across as what you don't want us to do.
  14. isladar -
    isladar's Avatar
    http://www.ucalgary.ca/cared/intention

    As noted elsewhere, in Human Rights law and anti-racism education, intentionality is irrelevant. It is the effect/impact of the action on the target person/group that is to be considered and takes precedence.
    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...061.x/abstract

    Institutional racism—institutional practice that perpetuates racial inequality—does not require individual prejudice or institutional intent, but is a by-product of business as usual.
    http://inside.bard.edu/~ansell/ansell_12.pdf this is a pdf, quote starts on page 20:

    "The new racism actively disavows racist intent... [...] Mainstream social science for the most part has failed to track the emergence of the new racism precisely because of its symbolic re-coding, and most importantly because of its apparently benign race-neutral form. [...] One reason why the new racism has not been obvious to either experts or its general audience is because it is couched within, and not against, both societies' civil religion -- the vocabulary of equal opportunity, color-blindness, race-neutrality, and, above all, individualism and individual rights."
    "Intent" and Equal Protection: A Reconsideration This is just a link to the abstract, I'm citing the full text through the university. This article is speaking specifically about legal intent insofar as it has been used in regards to suits of discrimination against the government, but it applies well, as putting the burden on the offended to prove intent on the part of the person using ugly speech is what we're talking about.

    Quote Originally Posted by p.409
    "One may, nevertheless, reach the conclusion that governmental intent is a constitutionally irrelevant consideration which has been inappropriately raised to primary importance in equal protection litigation. By assuming that the strictures of the Equal Protection Clause attach primarily to the process by which decisions are made and not independently to the substance and consequence of those decisions, the Court has endorsed a kind of legal alchemy: the recipe for equal protection involves avoiding impure thoughts while stirring the legislative pot."
    This one is neat as well, emphasis added:

    Quote Originally Posted by p.421
    One of the major problems associated with the intent rule is that it suggests that the locus of the denial of equal protection is in the process of decisionmaking[sic], specifically in the desire of those in power to segregate or otherwise disadvantage the aggrieved. It is similarly assumed that the extent of the injury suffered is commensurate with the extent of the illicit intent.
    Don't have a link because now I'm going poo-crazy, but here is the citation:
    "Heart" Attack: A Critique of Jorge Garcia's Volitional Conception of Racism
    Charles W. Mills
    The Journal of Ethics , Vol. 7, No. 1, Race, Racism, and Reparations (2003), pp. 29-62

    Quote Originally Posted by p. 36-37
    "Hatred is obviously not an act of the will.... But (less obviously) it is not the same as ill-will either. You can have hatred without ill-will, and ill-will without hatred. Clearly, one can have hatred for somebody without acting on that hatred -- there is a difference between having feelings and acting on them. But, I would claim, one can also have feelings without willing on the basis of them. [...] So given these distinctions, to speak as Garcia does of racism as 'essentially' involving our intentions does not follow from his own definition; you can have racial ill-will without any actual intent." (emphasis added)
    From Traditional to Liberal Racism: Living Racism in the Everyday
    Margaret M. Zamudio and Francisco Rios
    Sociological Perspectives , Vol. 49, No. 4 (Winter 2006), pp. 483-501
    Published by: University of California Press

    This is a really interesting article in general, so if you can find the complete text I'd very much recommend reading it. From the abstract, since I don't know how many folks have journal access on the regular:

    The authors conclude that the contemporary "colorblind" discourse of the liberal era suggests an ongoing race project centered on the maintenance of white privilege.
    The above is what I mean when I attack repetitions of "it's fine as long as different from default people don't 'ask for attention' [read: acknowledge issue]".

    Quote Originally Posted by p.484
    One of them major mechanisms at work in our new colorblind society is the primacy of the discourse that obscures both the prevalence of racism and the extent of white privilege (McIntosh 2004). Thus, one aspect of the struggle against racial inequality must be to demystify this discourse, to look at how this seemingly benign discourse around race and the institutions that promote it, put their stamp on a continued racial project where whites benefit at the expense of the racialized Other. [...] The notion of a "colorblind" racism reflects the contemporary race project in its attempts to perpetuate existing structural inequality by obscuring the structural dimension of racial inequality.
    Continuing, the authors then address the fallacy that racism is "'a thing of the past,' something ameliorated during the gains of the Civil Rights Movement..." (p.484):

    Quote Originally Posted by p. 485, emphasis added
    Embedded in this belief is an assumption that racism appears in only one form: explicit behavioral racist acts. This view further limits racism to actions of individuals against other individuals. Thus, if a person believes that he or she (and related friends and family members) is not racist, then racism must only exist in those extreme and rare instances wherein a "die-hard" racist acits in ways that are explicitly racist.
    ____

    If you would like more citation about intent not being a necessary component of racist/sexist language, I would be happy to keep going.
  15. Alleya -
    Alleya's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Tomiko
    I find this to by hypocritical considering the majority of your post is comparing the new rules and such to Hitler/Nazis. I can understand (and agree with) your reasoning for starting to enforce the rules more, but I just feel that the message could have been delivered better since it comes across as what you don't want us to do.
    I find this fucking ridiculous, personally. But then again this is BG so let's take a moment to explain some 8th grade reading comprehension.

    Isla's OP is ironic. Her comparisons to nazis/hitler is a characterization of her opposition, and an indictment of their inevitable overreaction to what should be a simple argument. It's hyperbolic and ridiculous because the kind of people who have such strong reactions to the idea that they shouldn't spout hate speech are ridiculous, hyperbolic people.

    Also, and this has come up quite a few times outside your post, the idea that if only we were NICER to the assholes/sexist/racists, then there wouldn't be so much drama! is just patently fucking stupid. Sorry. Despite what your mother told you, it is a science fact that you catch more flies with vinegar than honey.

    Quote Originally Posted by Akiyama
    I'm curious. Do you have some sort of Hitler-like persona buried within you somewhere? You .. use an awful lot of references to the Third Reich/Hitler related things, yet you quote someone who was 'dumb enough to reference this new change to nazi Germany' as a jackass.
    I'm curious how you can "get it" but also not get it, at all, in any way. Let's step back and think about this for a second.

    "Hey, I have a question, are you actually an anti-Semitic fascist? I'm just asking questions"

    No, shut up, Glenn Beck, why are you on BG, you're supposed to be on the air in 10 minutes. See my above reply for a basic explanation of irony, and then maybe consider reading a book with no pictures in it.
  16. galkaindaclub -
    galkaindaclub's Avatar
    I think people are aware of the irony of the op. The questions are not about that, but rather the persona and imagery that has been used to gain popularity to become an admin in the first place. The questions revolve around the hypocrisy of such behavior weighed against the punitive actions of late for similar questionable posting decisions. Having said that I'm fully aware that just because there are other problematic issues, it doesn't absolve responsibility to what is/was taking place.
  17. galkaindaclub -
    galkaindaclub's Avatar
    And Alleya, nobody will ever listen to you or take you seriously if that is how you speak to others.
  18. isladar -
    isladar's Avatar
    If I wasn't completely clear, and maybe I was too subtle in the post, but I was completely and utterly lampooning my earlier usage of that imagery. Because it was fucking retarded, and so was I for using it. I moved pretty quickly over to the Auntie/St. Isladar/Valkyrie roleplay, because that shit wasn't cool. Kinda funny that the Reich imagery gained such popularity to begin with. It wasn't okay then and it isn't now.

    So "who are you to judge" response is interesting, because it's all of us. We're supposed to judge us. We're supposed to be looking at the shit we say and going "wow, that's not all right". And changing our behaviour to reflect that.
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