MOD POST OF UTMOST IMPORTANCE

[two_if_by_sea]

This post directly addresses recent issues that have taken place at rahmbamarama, concerning a story posted that contained extremely offensive treatment of African-American hair. That post has since been edited, and an apology has been issued by the authors.

As you may recall, one of the very first mod posts made on rahmbamarama asked the community to respect one

Comments

[dirty_things]

i'm off to read links now, but first i just wanna say that everyone should not only visit the jim crow museum and see the racist memorabilia, but also read some of the texts on the site. they're really excellent.

also: i've completely missed the drama, was it in this community or elsewhere? could anyone fill me in?

[two_if_by_sea]

It wasn't really drama so much as a number of people bring up something offensively racist they saw in a story and us deciding this discussions was necessary. It's this thread if you're curious.

[sparkymonster]

Just as a thought, you may want to rethink the use of the word "drama" to refer to one community member pointing out racially problematic material another community member posted. Pointing out racism, anti-semitism, cultural insensitivity, etc. isn't done for frivolous reasons or to create drama. It's someone saying "hey that thing you did right there, that was hurtful. Please stop."

You might want to read this post on the subject: http://zvi-likes-tv.livejournal.com/417418.html

[dirty_things]

you're absolutely right, i just used my simple internet-lingo without thinking, which was dumb. it's particularly dumb because what i did there is the exact same thing i got really upset about when the "Amazon removes sales ranks of LGBT books" thing was referred to simply as "AmazonFail". i'm learning. i won't do it again.

[sirdrakesheir]

Thanks for the links, you guys! :)

[jaded110]

There was RACE!WANK?! In THIS community??!

I'm gonna go rock in a corner now...

[sparkymonster]

Just as a thought, calling something "RACE!WANK" is perhaps not the most sensitive way to describe the situation. When someone points out racism, anti-semitism, cultural insensitivity, etc. they aren't being wanky. The person is saying "hey that thing you did right there, that was hurtful. Please stop."

You might want to read this post on the subject: http://zvi-likes-tv.livejournal.com/417418.html

[jaded110]

I apologize for being insensitive. It just shocked me a bit. I'm going to read that post right now.

[sparkymonster]

Thanks for apologizing and reading.

[ilcocoabean]

I think my love for this comm and the mods has grown tens times as much. *off to read links*

[morlvera]

Thank you for posting this. I'm not sure what triggered it, but I was extraordinarily skeeved out by the jokes about "ha ha, Thomas Jefferson would totally do Michelle Obama, 'cause he slept with a slave, who was black, like her, get it?" business that came up back when the official Michelle Obama White House portrait was posted here. It was really shocking. I couldn't think of any way to speak up without coming across as a humorless dick, especially since I'm mostly a lurker here, and nobody wants to be a buzzkill, and nobody else seemed think that it was not really a lolarious accompaniment to the innocuous "our First Lady sure is hot" message that I was expecting. It means a lot to me that you guys notice and care about this stuff.

[jaded110]

Yeah, the Jefferson jokes bugged me a bit too. I regret not speaking out about it the first time.

[bookshop]

God. I am so so tremendously sorry that that went unnoticed.

Please please please always send us an email or a note via lj if you run across anything like that. We are hands off mods by necessity bc we just can't follow every thread, but should something like that come up we will absolutely step in, and then you don't have to worry about looking like a buzz kill.

And just for the future, a note to all: slavery jokes? Not something we're ok with.

[morlvera]

oh heck, I should be apologizing for taking the coward's way out and figuring somebody else would probably say something so I didn't have to bother, and in fact I do apologize for that. Community standards must be maintained by the whole community etc etc. Anyway I really really appreciate the way you guys keep an eye out to make sure this place stays the sexy kind of guilty pleasure, not the depressing kind of guilty pleasure with actual guilt.