I see. So the first issue isn’t really an active problem anymore since that mod is presumably long gone now, and then the other issue… Well, I can’t really think of any mods or admins with “cults of personalities” around them, or at least I don’t notice such a thing. I do think that people on Hexbear are sometimes too lenient on the mods and admins when they do poorly, “because they’re volunteers”, though — the opposite of being too harsh on a team of volunteers is of course also bad, but many people in any case aren’t at the sort of “golden mean” for relating to the site staff, and I think this is a real issue.
On Lemmygrad, the problem I identify with its culture is really what I’ve heard people call “debate pervertry” — it feels like because Lemmygrad generally takes itself more seriously and is more hesitant to “slap people’s wrists”, that there’s just less of a leveling mechanism compared to Hexbear. People aren’t “insulting the meat” as much here so to speak. So this sometimes ends up enabling, put simply, “sophistry” from Lemmygrad users, that I find very grating and unpleasant. So this is what I mean when I say that Lemmygrad has a toxic culture, but maybe it’s less toxicity per se and more that online cultures are sort of self-selecting, so Lemmygrad probably feels much less toxic if it’s the sort of culture you thrive in, whereas Hexbear is the sort of culture that I thrive in and so that’s my main instance that feels much less toxic to me.
We have not one but two leftist, anti-Zionist communities for Jewish issues in our federation, one on Hexbear (Judaism) and one on Lemmygrad (Jewish Quarter). Both of these communities are loaded with discussions, articles, and other resources. So it’s not nearly as hard to find good information independently as you might think. Hell, I’m not even opposed to people asking strange, silly or even offensive questions, I’ve done so on Askchapo many times without any issue — as long as someone can show that they’ve made an effort to understand on their own as well, then I think that’s the most important thing. The effort should be, put simply, reciprocal, the respect should be mutual. This is how we avoid wasting people’s time and energy, yes, their emotional labor.
I learned he was white by checking his modlog on Hexbear to see if this was the first time he’d gotten a post or comment removed — turns out he actually has had over the past 9 months a total of 20 (technically 22) posts or comments removed prior to the one that got him banned, including one comment removed four months ago in which he said, “Nah dude. He has a white exterior, but that doesn’t make him white automatically. For example, I’m white on the exterior but my soul is Chinese. It’s the inside that matters” (removal reason: “Inappropriate”)
I learned he was a man by checking his pronouns, which are in his bio — it is perhaps bad form to equate he/him pronouns with being a man, alas I did so anyways, also bearing in mind that his profile picture is a man, and I was evidently correct.
And I knew from before that he’s from Estonia and that he’s not very active in organizing, because I saw the post he made about the lack of opportunities to organize in Estonia in my feed one week ago, and remembered it. He’s a prolific user with a memorable name and picture. People are going to remember stuff he’s said about himself.
It is in any case easy enough for me to figure from his writings that he does not get regularly accused of being a succubus agent of the Jewish conspiracy to emasculate White Christian Men on the basis of his gender identity; that he has in fact probably never actually met a single Jew in his life, and has probably internalized a number of harmful attitudes in his society about the “Hypothetical Jew” that he pictures in his mind’s eye, if Estonia’s (lack of) reckoning with its antisemitic history is anything like Norway’s; and he evidently feels qualified to make confidently incorrect sweeping statements about who is and isn’t harmed by racism in a way that only white people really tend to do.
I always try to be open to being proven wrong about my assumptions about people, but evidently I was on the money this time. Those who are closer to institutional power time and time again also tend to be the leftists with the worst takes and the worst attitudes.
To be clear though, I’m also “broadly white”, I’m also from a reactionary European country with a minuscule Jewish population that I’ve never personally met to my knowledge, and I’m also not super involved in organized advocacy (I am part of an org but I’ve only been to like 4 meetings in a year). So I’m not trying to shame borschtisgarbo for any of these things, in fact I welcome people to look at me with suspicion, too. And I know that borschtisgarbo is trying to get better organized and I wish him luck in that, but getting upset about being personally cried as antisemitism’s wolf over arguing with Internet strangers anonymously about Palestine, is not the same as tiring from having to defend a whole organization from baseless accusations from bourgeois media, or actually being put in danger by Zionist lunatics.
But he doesn’t believe that Diaspora Jewish liberation is the same struggle as Palestinian liberation, though!! If he did he would already care about antisemitism!! The fact that he doesn’t care about antisemitism is what caused this issue!!
It is.