A story from the past · 7:19pm Jul 17th, 2020
I'd like to tell you a story.
A real story. As in, this can more than likely be proven.
It should come as no surprise that I am an American. Born and raised here, and, for the most part, proud of it. I go to vote, I pay my taxes, all that.
Between the years of 2000 and 2013, man that feels like forever ago... I lived in a tiny little town know as Sharpsburg in Washington County located in the state of Maryland. A place nestled up against West Virginia and was as redneck and hillbilly as you could get for the area.
History buffs among you will already recognize that town name as it was the site of a Civil War battle. A rather large and bloody battle - Antietam Battlefield. Which, on an aside, is a nice place to visit and I'd highly recommend you go. The town prides itself on its history and the main street still retains elements of the houses that stood during the battle.
They also host amazing events and fireworks during the Fourth. Or at least they did, I've no clue if they still do. Hold on to that event bit, it'll be relevant later.
I, myself, lived on a development known unofficially as "Confederate Hills", named such for two reasons. One, all of the roads and lanes were named after a confederate army general. Every. Last. One. Mine was "General Robert E. Lee Drive" and god how I hated writing it out. And two was that the area itself was, without question, the site of where the confederate army made camp.
This particular story begins somewhere between 2002 and 2006. I don't have a precise date as I forget, but I do know it was around when I graduated high school and that was in 2004.
But it begins with none other than the Klu Klux Klan. And yes. I mean that KKK.
What had happened was that they had decided that they wanted to hold a rally, but were trying to figure out a place to hold it. The place they decided to hold it was, you guessed it, Antietam Battlefield National Park. I guess some up and comer suggested it or they just threw a dart at a map.
And so they started to plan and setup and get ready for it. They made ads in the news papers, spoke on local news, made leaflets, the whole nine yards to promote this rally. They even had the nearby prison loan them some buses to shuttle the bigwigs to the join. For some reason.
And they succeeded, kinda. People knew of it, and they spoke of it, but that was it.
And then the fabled day came. It was during the summer, on a rather nice day, if I recall. Sunny and pleasant. And the town of Sharpsburg was absolutely flooded with traffic.
Cops were everywhere, cars were everywhere, traffic was like you'd see in DC, police were everywhere, there were snipers in the water tower... And they did, as I said, arrive via prison bus. That whole day was just straight weird.
And then the next day came...
...And...
Nothing.
Not a single thing suggested that they had even been there. There was no follow up article, no news bit, no new chapter sprung up, and as far as I know, no new KKK recruits. As far as Sharpsburg, and Washington County in general, it had happened. And that was it.
In fact, a few weeks later, as a friend's father was over talking to my step father, the friend's father told him a tale that had occurred at his job between a white and black coworker. I'll put it in quotes here:
White Guy: "Hey, (friend's father)'s town is having a rally happening soon. You should go, it'll be fun!"
Black Guy: "Oh yeah? What's the rally for?"
WG, with a shit-eating smile: "The Klan."
Pause.
BG, with an amused smile and laugh: "Fuck you."
Right up to me heading to Florida in 2012, I never saw them in the area again. Not a trace. No lynchings, no burnings, no nothing. It was like they were never there. I'm sure they were, but they made their attempt and that was it.
And then I moved.
Is there a point to this story? Is it relevant to today and all?
Maybe. I'd like to think so, but ultimately? I'll let you figure it out for yourself.
That's all I got. I'll leave you with this revelation I had earlier:
The problem with being the dumbest guy in the room is that you can never easily explain your answer/point/suggestion accurately.
~Skeeter The Lurker
This is the most intelligent commentary on my feed right now.
Thank you for posting this.
5311617
5311626
You got the point. I'm so thankful.
Thank you for reading.
~Skeeter The Lurker
5311617
5311626
Um. Hate to ask, but feel free to share. My name hasn't the calling power it once did.
~Skeeter The Lurker
Of course, the Klan has a bad rap. They're so synonymous with 'evil' in this country that both major political parties try to pin them as ideological or historical comrades of the KKK for points. The KKK's bad. Everyone knows that. They've got bad publicity (and for good fucking reason), and that's that's why their turnouts aren't that great and haven't been for years. No one wants to be associated with the KKK, specifically. That's why people sympathetic to their ideas don't wear hoods anymore.
No, they have other fashion accessories now.
5311687
Ah. Fantastic.
I still can't explain my point or suggestion or answer.
Good to know.
I'd try right here but if the blog itself didn't convey it, I sure as hell can't figure out a way to make it clear.
~Skeeter The Lurker
At first I was like "What the fuck are you talking about?!" and then I was like "Ohhhh shit! This is really fucking good commentary" good shit mate
5311774
Thanks for understanding.
~Skeeter The Lurker
I don't know, maybe I'm just another dumb guy in the room, but as far as I can tell, your implication here is that because you didn't personally see any corpses hanging from crosses after a massive and public KKK rally, and because you also heard a secondhand account of a time a black guy totally wasn't offended by a racist joke at his expense, said rally ultimately had no effect and everything was--and remains--hunky-dory.
I truly don't know how to respond to that kind of perspective--must be the dumb guy in me coming out again--other than by saying that you're embarrassingly naive and short-sighted if you earnestly believe that, and that these kinds of rallies and jokes being allowed to exist in the first place is extraordinarily antagonistic towards the people whom that organization targets. And by "targets," I of course mean "encourages and often actively facilitates the degradation and murder of," because we're talking about the literal goddamn Ku Klux Klan.
Violent and racist rhetoric is never meaningless, even if you personally see no meaning in it--and especially if the reason you see no meaning in it is because you're not in any of the groups targeted by it. Which you're not. I've met you. I know both of us are pasty fucking white. I don't have any better grounds to speak about the experience of being Black in America than you do.
But at least I'm not dumb enough to think that experience doesn't exist.
5311860
God, Aqua, thank you. I've been burned out responding to people like this all day, and wasn't sure what to say.
Skeeter, I am begging you to open up your experience. People are literally dying in this country because of white supremacy, and because of the legacy of racism. Don't just say "well, one time the KKK didn't lynch anyone, so I guess it's fine".
5311860
5311883
That was not the point of the story.
The story was true, but the viewpoint you got from it is completely wrong. And if you can't see it, then I'm sorry. I simply do not know of any other way to explain it.
And the "dumbest person" part wasn't a remark to you or anyone, Aqua, it was about ME.
~Skeeter The Lurker
5311893
Simple. They didn't zero in on the KKK aspect.
~Skeeter The Lurker
5311860
Does sound like you completely missed the point, as you suspected.
5311860
5311883
5311900
Look. I am not pro nazi.
I am pro BLM.
I am pro LBGQT.
I am pro free speech, but to a point.
At the very least, you can understand that, I hope.
~Skeeter The Lurker
5311889
If your intended message wasn't "it's okay to let the KKK hold a rally, because nothing bad will happen", then I also don't know what the point of your story was. And I really want to know what the other commenters, the ones who praised you for making such an intelligent point, thought that point was.
Seriously.
5311617
5311626
5311774
Can you please tell me your interpretation of the point? Because I'm clearly not seeing the author's intent.
In the meantime, though: here's a story of mine, and it's a little shorter.
Once upon a time, the My Little Pony fandom let a bunch of fascists into it. Today, I spoke with a good friend of mine, who told me they had to leave the fandom years ago because of how bad the Nazism had gotten. Years ago.
You know what the point of my story is? It's that we need to get fascists out of this fandom because they will push away everyone who's not willing to tolerate their horrible, exclusionary ideology, because those people will not feel safe.
5311909
It's the KKK were just a bit part in the whole thing.
I just... Look, I'm trying like hell to figure a better way that this blog to explain, I mean... Look past the KKK part? Maybe?
Fuck I don't know.
~Skeeter The Lurker
5311919
...Right. I still have no way to explain, and a friend suggested you all don't want to listen, I think I believe him.
I'll not say anything else any more. If you can't see the point, I don't know what else to say or how else to explain.
You three will not be blocked, but I will no longer reply.
~Skeeter The Lurker
5311927
Now I know this is intentional.
~Skeeter The Lurker
5311898
I don't get how they missed this. It's not that hard!
5311909
I saw the point as being that speech is just speech, and does not inherently lead to violence or whatever thought invasion people seem to fear. Sometimes people say not okay things, and if they don't act on those words, you leave them alone.
But I do have a friend with a reputation here for being intelligent and kind, and he is no longer in the fandom because he saw friends here (who also have very good reputations) becoming left wing authortarians, and he predicted they'd eventually try to root out all the "wrongthink" on the site at the expense of free expression and association, and that if he spoke against it he'd be labled a nazi.
I told him that was silly, no one would put up with that.
My feed is not currently full of "literal nazis." It's full of those friends of his.
5311957
Wow, those are not okay things. If they act on them, we should definetly arrest them.
In the meantime, I would not hang out there. Which I do not.
5311966
I judge the chances that genocide of Muslims will be orchestrated on FiMfic to be very low. And if it was likely, I don't think our community pushing the talk someplace else would help matters.
I judge the chances that the talk about banning people for things you don't want them to talk about will escalate to action, and further to cover more subjects, to be very high. And if it is, speaking out against it seems like the best course of action.
5311909
There seems to be a growing consensus that there's a big problem in this fandom: because fascists, racists, nazis, what have you, are allowed to put their ideas out there instead of being promptly ejected from the community, there's a message being sent that those ideas are acceptable, and that this is creating a toxic, uncomfortable atmosphere.
But from what I've seen, those sorts of people mostly keep to themselves, and when they do come out in the open or to other people's blog posts or whatever, they're treated just like the screeching lunatics they are. They're not bringing anyone over to their side. They're not being accepted. They're being shouted down, ignored, shunned, or laughed at, because they don't make up anything even close to a majority and they're not even close to what most people here think is acceptable. That's my take.
5311980
If I may? I don't see this going anywhere.
The point is made. He just doesn't want to see and/or accept it.
~Skeeter The Lurker
5311951
Thank you for your response. I will respond to it in two parts.
First of all... it seems like your interpretation of the intended point of Skeeter's story, actually matches up with my interpretation of his intended point: that it's okay to let KKK members speak. This was also the interpretation that Aquaman and Antsan had, as far as I can see. I think we differ on whether we agree with that point, but I think we both agree it was the point.
But Skeeter is telling us, quite emphatically, that this was not the point he intended:
So, now I'm more confused than ever, because if that wasn't the point, then what was?
Now, second of all: I don't know who your friend is, or what your feed looks like specifically. But I can tell you what I've been seeing on FiMFiction today:
That's been my day. And please don't tell me that these people are just enthusiastic about free speech, because they don't care about - for instance - the freedom of speech that peaceful protesters are being denied by their repeated arrests. I know because I've asked, and those people don't care. They only care about ensuring that fascists have as wide a platform to spread their hatred as possible.
BookPlayer, I don't think you're a Nazi. I don't think Skeeter is, either: I take him at his word that he is not a Nazi, and that he does support Black Lives Matter (at least verbally: I have no knowledge of his donations or involvement in protests/petitions). Similarly, I hope you can believe me when I say that my goal is not to become some sort of crusader against wrongthink.
But as fascism takes root in my country, and directly threatens the lives of my friends, I don't want to see fascism take over my favorite fanfiction website too.
(PS: If you think that left wing authoritarians are a bigger problem than right wing extremists on this platform, I encourage you to remember how the current brouhaha around Nazism in bronydom started: Jetfire2012 tried to attack protesters with a sword, after tweeting that his sword was "eager to drip with blood" to prove his religious fervor. I hope this helps explain why I'm worried more about the right wing than the left.)
5311980 That's filled with fallacies, I think namely that you're presenting the situation wrongly. It's not that FIMFic will become the hotspot for evil, but to suggest that anything less is acceptable(?) or should be tolerated is terrible. And even if pushing them out would probably not hurt their cause, why shouldn't we? Why should FIMFic harbor someone who may want to share hate in the community?
5311993
Literally the vast majority of the comments on TS's blog are agreeing with her and praising her for participating in the Nazi-themed art pack. She is not being shouted down, and she is not being shunned: she is being welcomed. And the porn story from ClopficInTheComments, the one about Aryanne, is at the top of the feature box. That's the best metric I can think of for what ideas the site is okay with, and the Nazi porn story is at the top.
I wish I could share your confidence that this website is anti-Nazi as a whole. But what I have seen today does not bear out this hypothesis.
5311991
He was your friend too. Left years ago, when it was just a few other people who suddenly got woke. He's a very smart man, and knew we'd get here eventually.
Previous blog posts about things people shouldn't write or post about?
Comments by people on other blogs literally adding on other things we should ban?
Yeah, both of those.
5311995
Wow that's an excellent summary of events, most of which I did not know of. That's very scary that such views are part of FIMFiction, and how they bleed into the world outside of FIMFic. Did you collect those yourself just now?
5311951
If this were true, people wouldn't be using propaganda so hard, advertising so hard, to make people believe one thing or another. Speeches wouldn't convince an entire country that maybe commiting genocide on a scapegoat would be a good idea.
Maybe we shouldn't wait for a few million deaths before we dismantle Nazi Germany
5312004
I wouldn't say "just now". I've been dealing with this all day. I hope it's clear that I am very worried by what's happening in this fandom.
That said, I'm certainly glad this compilation was useful to you, and I hope it is useful to others as well.
5311957
Wow, people saying fucked up shit.
Evil, evil words.
But still just words.
Meanwhile, outside the internet, China is literally loading muslims in train cars to be shipped to concentration camps to be sterilized and have organs harvested. The video one brave guy got with his drone is horrifying familiar to a certain another time in history.
But no, people TALKING about doing it are the problem.
They have no power. They can talk all they want. It isn't a crime.
Banning them from everything creates extremist. Expose them to other viewpoints. Let them see people disagree with that viewpoint. Don't lock them away with themselves, so they continuously rile themselves up until one snaps, and we have another New Zealand.
We don't lock klan members up for being a klan member. They can sit in a circle and hate people all they want. Vent all day. They know they have no support from the public, and so accept that's all they can do.
5311995
I believe that you don't think I'm a nazi. And I've seen all those things you mentioned. (Well, I missed the gay slur.)
You don't think some (most) of those things you mentioned are happening specifically because someone told people they shouldn't do something? Was this something that happened regularly before they were told not to do it?
5312005
To be fair, that artist did drag them all out of the terrible situation they were forced into by the rest of Europe. Ya know, when they used Germany as a scapegoat for WWI. Hitler probably never would have rose to power if that hadn't happened. When desperate, people can turn a blind eye to anything.
Also If I recall many in Germany weren't aware of how horrific it got until the end. The nazis weren't just going around saying they were killing millions of people for shits and giggles. Arrested, yes. Sent away, yes. But the genocide i think was kept out of the public eye
5312014
I only brought him up in response to 5311909 's nebulous friend. You're the one who dragged him back in. But I'll PM you.
Well, I'd believe it more likely if people weren't ordering people who disagree to not read their blogs or stories. That seems like a bad way to persuade people that you can be reasonable about future disagreements.
5312052
Who have different perspectives on the current question of what should be banned, specifically. Sometimes they throw in 40-50% of the country by politics, too.
5312028
Well, that depends. This specific Nazi-themed art pack didn't exist, I suppose, until people got mad at how much unopposed Nazi stuff was in the fandom. However, stories with Aryanne have existed since 2014. The first Derpibooru image with Aryanne is from February 2014, and there's over three thousand images of her, so... several hundred a year. And The Unsafe Space has existed on FiMFic since 2017, a group which is pretty much full of rightwingers and where I've seen one person call for the West to defend itself against the horde of Muslim savages. (This was in the aftermath of the Christchurch shootings.)
So those things definitely existed before the current backlash. (And indeed, it's difficult to imagine there'd be backlash if there wasn't something to lash back against. Not impossible, I suppose, but difficult.)
However, all that being said: I feel like the response to "stop posting Nazi stuff in our fandom" shouldn't be "I'm gonna post a lot more Nazi stuff!" To put it another way, the fact that the backlash against Nazi stuff, seems to have gotten such a counter-backlash in favor of Nazi stuff—from ClopficInTheComments, TittySparkles, and others—indicates that those people are okay with Nazi stuff, and so are the people who follow them. So even if this sudden surge of Nazi-related art and fic was only because of the backlash, that wouldn't make me think it was okay, and it wouldn't make me think we don't have a problem.
Pleased to know you, Skeeter, and I hope to hell you're right.
It'd be nice. Ask me in, oh, uhhh… a hundred and forty-two years.
Put like that, yeah, I get it, and thank you. That is a powerfully optimistic view, looked at a certain way. Be kind (continue to be kind) to anyone in the crosshairs right now, ok? Not everybody gets to make it through all this.
5312132
Out of everyone on this site... I am so glad you have an idea of what I'm trying to suggest.
Thank you, so much.
~Skeeter The Lurker
5312069
I'd be comfortable with banning anyone who openly advocates -- in their own words -- violence against a Jewish (or any) member of the community. I wouldn't balk at banning anyone who makes a specific and feasible general threat (for instance, "I'm going to bomb x place at x time." Not "I'm going to explode ISIS!')
I'm also always a fan of banning people who persistantly post things in groups or blogs where they're judged off topic by the people who maintain it. (Which does not include the site as a whole, because someone might want to create a nazi pony to write stories about, which would be on topic.)
Beyond that, I feel like there's too much plausable deniability to accurately judge the difference between Nazis, edgelords, gallows humor, and people playing devil's advocate.
I don't buy that the latter people are proven to be nazis, nazis by association, promote naziism, are recruiting for nazis, could consider someday becoming nazis, etc.
However, I should note that I am literally the first person I've seen try to define "nazi" without, essentially, "I'll know it when I see it." Which I think is a big problem with the conversation.
5312024
How the hell else do you think it starts? It always starts with talking.
5312163
Experience tells me it's a pattern of behavior.
Nazis tend to hide what they are, because being openly what they are would rightfully get their asses kicked. But even so, they can't not be bigoted pieces of shit, so there's almost always warning signs. Saying bigoted stuff and then just passing it off a joke, complaining about things that only exist in far-right conspiracy theories, outright lying to your face...
Actually, I have some practical experience here. I was in a Discord that was covering the protests not too long ago, and we had this guy in there that just struck me as weird. At first, I couldn't quite articulate why, but then those same patterns emerged. Complaining about Zionists to the exclusion of everything else. Being suspiciously adamant that he doesn't hate anyone and just wants people to live in peace. His words, not mine. Kind of odd.
I'd seen this all before. I was going to bring it up to the admins, but I ended up getting beat to the punch. About a day after my first interaction with him, he started posting Holocaust denial shit.
Yeah.
Think of it like a checklist, and the more things get ticked off, the more likely it is that they're a nazi. Check enough, and you're justified to boot their ass out the same as you would any user you suspected of being a troll. Some shit you just don't risk.
5312195
All I wanted was a civil consideration of a different point of view. It failed. I get it.
Just... Fuckit. I don't care. Spread your toxicity if you must, I've nothing left to say.
Nazis are bad. Free speech is bad. Disagree and you're a nazi. Is that what you want me to think?
~Skeeter The Lurker
5312224
Nazis are bad. This we agree on, and I'm glad we do.
They're bad enough that they have to be banned. This may be where we disagree. I don't know. The point me and others have made elsewhere is that they'll claim to be free speech advocates, which is always always a cover to post their propaganda, and a lot of us here will be more than willing to tell you how many times we've seen this pattern repeat itself.
I really doubt anyone here thinks you're a nazi. Just that you might be underestimating the problem.
5312042
which means by the time we catch someone "acting on it" its probably already too fucking late
Are you trying to subtly get across that the KKK’s prominence is diminishing over time or something? I feel like your tale was all setup but no payoff.
5312244 I'm not defending nazis, I'm defending everything.
If everything even slightly related to the nazis has to go, why not everything socialist as well. It's killed many more, and hell, it was the National Socialist party. Why does the slippery slope ONLY apply to nazis.
Because the nazis are more talked about?
Why is China currently doing the exact same thing as the Nazis, to a religious minority, right now, and all people want do do is complain about art, jokes, movies, video games, and words. We bitch about the president like he's responsible for all the evil in the world. We Attack people who think differently from ourselves. Demonize each other. Then act like that's going to help actual people.
It's a way to FEEL like we did a good deed. The easy way out.
A guy just snuck some footage out there and it is horrifyingly familiar.
But no, can't talk bad about China. Gotta ban the footage, censor reality, and bow down. Remove Tibet from the maps because china said so. The damn hypocrisy of it all. (I'm ranting at this point, but fuck it)
But no, gotta fight against that evil, evil art.
Hiding them away with no dissenting opinions creates extremist. They feed into each other and become convinced they have to do something radical by any means necessary. Then we get Christchurch. Because he was forced into a hole with only people who were just as fucked in the head. Nobody to convince him of a better path.
(Then we get instigators involved, but that's neither here nor there)
No more double standards. No more only one side getting shafted. If you demand the nazis go, people demand the socialist go on principle alone. Then we just slide down that hill, back and forth, until we end up sitting at the bottom, never saying a word. Because nothing is permitted anymore.
But I'm a libertarian. I don't want to live in that world. I want everyone to be able to communicate with each other. Everyone to be free to do as they wish as long as it doesn't physically harm someone else.
Condemn them, prove them wrong, change their minds. Follow Daryl Davis' example of changing them by just being a good person and leading by example. Slow, permanent, VOLUNTARY change is much better than instant, temporary, FAKE change.
Create true change in the world instead of hiding from it, forcing it out of sight, and pretending we made a difference.
5312349
Are you suggesting we arrest people who haven't committed a crime? Just the suspicion they may in the future? That's rather horrifying to imagine. Can't see it being abused at all. Kinda like the red flag laws and no knock warrants.
Oh wait. Those people died.
'Those who would trade Liberty for Security deserve neither.'
5312489
We've tried that route. It's come up empty, because nazis aren't interested in changing their minds. Never have been. Should Weimar have just tried to 'change their minds'?
Suggesting they are receptive to that is very naive to what their nature is.
5312495
So the Klan can change their minds, but not the nazis?
People literally born into a klan family, going back generations. Entire damn towns. The fucking grand dragons/wizards, heads of groups of hundreds or thousands of clansmen and clanswomen. They can change their minds. Be convinced by a SINGLE black man, of all people, to give it up and be a better person.
But not that random skinhead over there? That edgy dude on 4chan? That one gang member?
What makes them different? It's not that they can't change, it's that people don't even try. Because they already committed the 'original sin' of being labeled a nazi.
What is this logic. Its like you expect nobody to ever come along to have similar views to those that existed in the past. People to fall into the wrong crowds. There will always be a fringe minority of fuckheads. Short of rounding them up and executing them the moment they commit wrongthink, this is part of reality.
This seems to be something drilled into your head. That nazi=unforgivable. No path to forgiveness. No way to repent. Even when all they've done is speak.
Only the word nazi seems to create this view from you. Nobody else seems to get this treatment. What makes them different? Black supremacists, white supremacists, muslim extremist, christian extremist. Whatever other horrible thing people are.
Only nazis get this level of unforgivable.
There isn't a REAL reason why either. Just "They're nazis."
And that's not to mention that the definition of nazi seems to expand every day. Its not that there's more nazis, it's that more people are called nazis to demonize them. Due to the near instinctive revulsion to the word that no other group gets, which you are currently demonstrating.
It's people faking hate crimes, like that dude that stabbed himself, then tried to blame the nazis. People like Jessie Smollet. It makes it seem like racist/nazis are everywhere. Because victimhood is currency nowadays.
Hell. By twitter standards, I'm a nazi.
The word has nearly lost all meaning.
Again, there is literally another holocaust happening in the world, but all we do is argue amongst ourselves about what people should be allowed to think and say.
(Just checked the time, holy hell it's 2 am. Goodbye everyone, I'll remember you all in therapy.)
5312494
No, but we can try telling people to stop using the same language racists use to downgrade others, and encourage actual racists to feel emboldened.