A few weeks ago, while discussing things online, I was told about a current ResetEra moderator’s old posts regarding things like race, religion, etc – things that were surprising to me at the time, as they had not demonstrated this before. I was also told that these posts had disqualified this person from moderating other sites in the past.
I was confused – were my friends telling the truth? Is this something taken out of context, or a pattern of posts?
So I looked into it briefly. And I wanted to talk about them now.
I’ve done my best to provide context for the quotes, as well as screencaps of the posts themselves. I did not include links to the post to keep things anonymous. I will also not provide any personal commentary on the posts themselves – only the posts and their context. It is not for me to decide how these posts are read, and I did my best to try and eliminate bias.
For brevity, I will keep things to the two sections below. If you just want the screencaps to the posts themselves, they are here:
https://imgur.com/a/JncqReH
Regarding Islam/Religions
When discussing things in the unpopular opinions threads:
‘Religious beliefs are not inherently deserving of respect’
https://imgur.com/EBX8aMR
‘You hate Islam, not Muslims. I'd say you're good.’
https://imgur.com/JSaZmw6
Discussing killings motivated by race/religion:
‘Do killers who are not motivated by Islam typically shout "Allahu Akbar!"?’
https://imgur.com/h9fvXyi
When discussing whether Islam oppresses women:
‘To answer the OP: yes, yes it is. It is not the only religion to be inherently oppressive to women (all Abrahamic religions are guilty), but that's not a defense at all.
Many Muslims will throw wall o' texts full of mental gymnastics to prove otherwise, but it's all denial and hand-waving.’
https://imgur.com/B0bzSty
When discussion bigotry regarding religions:
‘Hating a religion doesn't make one a bigot though.’
https://imgur.com/9DKdkS3
‘Please. Islam gets plenty of mockery too (and plenty of butthurt apologists who whine about islamophobia and "respecting beliefs", as if any belief were inherently worthy of respect).’
https://imgur.com/7Mjd1wm
Section 2:
Minority Cultures
Discussing their belief that all rap music is bad
‘Other than already not caring about Marvel stuff and all rap music sucking instead of most... I think I'm down with most of that really!’
https://imgur.com/ijjxYj1
When challenged on this, noting the potential for this kind of viewpoint being a racist dogwhistle:
‘Well, I think people who call others racist for disliking a style of music are comically and insultingly out of touch with reality.’
https://imgur.com/ofjEHkD
When challenged further:
‘Hating a music style has nothing to do with being racist, even if a style is predominantly played by people of a certain race. People who hate J-pop aren't racist either. GTFO’
‘I don't know why you're arguing against things I never said. I don't hate rap because of misogyny or anti-intellectualism (lol, I listen to metal FFS), but because I hate rapped vocals.’
https://imgur.com/WmKgKYI
Lack of understanding verbiage for minorities
‘I apologize for my ignorance, but why is that, exactly? Is this an English only issue? If it weren't for the Internet I would have assumed that saying "blacks", "whites", etc. was OK, but apparently it's really bad, so I know better, but I'm just not sure why.’
https://imgur.com/9uQ6HXa
‘Sorry if this is off-topic but maybe that's a good place to ask... English isn't my first language so I'm genuinely wondering, not concern trolling or anything. So I noticed that apparently using "the blacks" is considered offensive but "blacks" isn't. I know you're supposed to say "black people" But I'm not sure why adding a "the" would turn it offensive. Can someone explain? It seems to be more about just awkward grammar, right?
Apologies for my ignorance.’ (Truncated for readability)
https://imgur.com/sE8BX08
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