Yeah, a lot depends on where you live. Check out these lines. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wmMobN4AVw And they’re far from the worst! I just did a search on “four hour voting lines” and it happened in Chicago, New Jersey, UC Irvine, Northeast Ohio …and that’s just the first page of search results.

One reason people might be annoyed by this is because it sounds like you don’t realize how many people had to wait in four-hour long lines.

Anyhow, turnout wasn’t abysmal, it looks like be down a bit from 2020’s record numbers.

Do you think the Director of CISA – who Biden appointed (and has done a great job) and Trump will almost certainly fire – lives under a rock and wants Trump to take office? Because here’s what she said:

https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/news/statement-cisa-director-easterly-security-2024-elections

What’s the evidence you find “literally incontrovertible”?

The comparison is apt though:

• In 2020, almost all non-partisan voting rights organizations and election experts (as well as most Republicans, despite losing) were saying that there was in fact no evidence of widespread election fraud. So conservatives claiming election fraud were seen as conspiracy theorists who were spreading disinfo (either intentionally or because they really thought there was evidence).

• In 2024, almost all non-partisan voting rights organizations and election experts (as well as most Democrats, despite losing) are saying that there was in fact no evidence of widespread election fraud. So …

Sure, if it’s somebody you know or trust who’s saying this, then it’s not disinformation; agreed about helping them contact election officials and/or other authorities, and if you think it’s useful to amplify it, then I’m not trying to talk you out of it.

If it’s not somebody you know or trust, then amplifying it is quite possibly helping out a disinformation campaign.

And in any case, amplifying individual claims is very different from the unsupported claims about “millions of missing votes”, and that’s what I am trying to talk people out of.

It’s true that downballot Dems ran ahead of Harris in most states. Why do you think it’s statistically unlikely? Polls ahead of the election showed downballot Dems were more popular than Harris. Republicans focused most of their negative campaigning on Harris. Biden’s very unpopular and she didn’t try to distance herself from him (I’m not saying that she should have, I’m just observing that she didn’t). Sexists and racists were less likely to vote for Harris.

I talked about that in the article:

Don’t get me wrong, multiple voter suppression techniques actually were used to keep people from voting – purging voters from rolls, felon disenfranchisement, 6-hour lines, texts with false information, voter intimidation, voter id laws, signature challenges, etc etc etc. But that’s not what these conspiracy allegations are focusing on.

And I also discussed it in terms of the goals of people pushing these conspiracy theories:

focusing attention on an alleged fraud that didn’t occur is a good way to divert attention from all voter suppression that really has occurred and has been steadily ramping up ever since Republicans on the Supreme Court gutted the Voing Rights Act – and got even worse this year after Republicans blocked legislation that could have provided voters and election officials with more protection.

Yeah. Well, discussions about stuff like this are good at revealing people to block and ban.

Yeah it’s a very thorough report and makes it very clear just how little excuse there is for FSF and Stallman’s other defenders to continue to enable and support his behavior. Agreed that he himself isn’t particularly relevant, but his supporters are still very influential in some areas of the open source community.

Thanks much for the detailed response! And thanks @[email protected] for the detailed response as well.

That’s a great point, can I quote you on having seen it on Lemmy quite a few times?

Thanks very much for the feedback, I really appreciate the time you put into it and. you bring up a lot of very good points. For “start making” vs “making” and “less toxic” vs “more welcoming”, I’m intentionally choosing the weaker forms to emphasize that these are only the very first steps. I know it’s a harder sell this way but it’s important to set expectations. It’s a good point about how some allies saying :“listen to me!” take space from marginalized groups, I kind of feel like I’ve got that covered by betweent the combination of #1 and #2 but maybe it’s worth making more explicit.

Agreed that the discussion of repeated questions could be more explicit. (It’s not necessarily sealioning, although sometimes it is; often it’s the same one or two reasonable questions from a huge number of people.). But that’s not actually the key point I’m trying to make. Instead, to relates to this:

the way that this point is currently worded, it sounds fallacious (inversion of the burden of the proof)

Many people react that way but think about it a little more. It’s a fact. Mutliuple Black people have proven it repeatedly. There is no further burden of proof, it’s only whiteness’ denial that makes it seem like an open question and entitlement that makes it seem like Black people should produce more evidence. The annoyance factor is a big deal too, but it’s secondary.

And, good catch on the typo, thanks!

Thanks very much for wading in, @[email protected] - and thanks again to all the mods for taking action here. Any thread about racism in the fediverse becomes evidence of racism in the fediverse, sigh.

More positively, though, I got some very helpful feedback here from @[email protected], @[email protected] and @[email protected] … which is appreciated, and testimony to the fact that clearly a lot of people on Beehaw do get it!

Thanks very much for wading in!

Good feedback, thanks much. I did check with Black people about directing folks to #BlackMastodon and the @ blackfedi group – but I should probably be more explicit about not posting their, and your general point about not barging into spaces where you’re not invited is importat and something I should highlight. I’ll add something to the “and tht’s not all” section about working on your biases and behaviors more generally. And also good point about stressing the intersectional aspects more. Greatly appreciated!

Thanks much, I very much appreciate the supportive words! And, great analysis, thanks for that as well. Although, if you think things are bad here you should see the lemmy.world thread, where it’s down to -47. And just imagine how much worse it would be if I were Black!

These things are basic, but most white people aren’t doing them – even people who think of themselves as staunchly pro Black. And there are multiple examples in the article of how white people might be impacting Black people unintentionally, for example thisiswomanswerk talks about how hand-wringing messages of symptay many times are themselves microaggresive, and suggestions like “Stop asking Black people for evidence of the anti-Blackness” and “Stop telling Black people that they’ll experience less racism if they change instances (aka servers)”

No, “color blindness” perpetuates structural racism. Here’s one study looking at that. Seeing Race Again Countering Colorblindness across the Disciplines has a lot more, although it’s focused on law and academia.

Yeah, the section on “Listen more to Black people” didn’t really cover the challenges on Lemmy. I added this:

If you’re on a platform like Lemmy which doesn’t yet have similar hubs, it’s more challenging. One option is to use other social networks, news aggregators, and search engines to find articles, papers, and videos by Black people – and post them yourself to help others listen.

How’s that?

Thanks, all good points, I’ll try to work them in! The boosting is somewhat tricky, the general guideline is “boost posts tht people want boosted, don’t boost posts that they don’t want boosted”, but it’s not always clear which is which (unless they. have “Please boost” in there somewhere)