Yesterday, myself and several other bipocs and their allies were kicked out of a server for Marvel event mods. The reason being that we spoke up about how the environment was unsafe there and asked what the mods planned to do about it. The mods kicked us without warning and some of us were subsequently kicked from an unrelated server which is Steve/Bucky 18+. That is because the mods that run both the servers are the same: KelseyFantasy and ExtraneousAdverbs. Cheermione was also a mod for the Marvel Mod server. 

This server had a history of silencing bipoc to “keep the peace” when those who posted incendiary comments meant to start fights with those whose modding policies they didn’t agree with were allowed to speak freely. 

Things came to a head yesterday when I was backed into a corner by the mods after (rightfully) calling out another mod for their hypocritical stance on anon modding for fear of backlash to the mods, when that same mod had harassed myself and @samstevebuckyhq in the mod server over our mod policy. They were allowed to dogpile us for two days. I made one critical post of them and was told to stop the convo out of respect for other mod policies. 

Several others spoke out about how they felt unsafe in that space. The mods replied ‘we’ll work on it.’ 

Today we asked what was going to be done? They said fill out this google form. We asked about specific issues in the server. We asked for an apology. They said be quiet. Others chimed in saying we were witch-hunting. 

They were not told to be quiet. 

I dropped a link for a new mod server, as clearly we were not going to get anywhere and I knew we were going to be kicked soon. I was right. We were almost all instantly kicked under the guise that they told us to stop talking. Many people kicked hadn’t spoken, they were only associated with us. 

Those that agreed with the mods are still in the chat. 

But please, don’t take my word for it. Screenshots can be found on twitter here. 

It’s clear to see what happened here today. Fandom, as a whole, we need you to do better. It’s going to be uncomfortable, I understand. But we need y’all to do the work. BIPOC fans should not fear every space they are in will eventually turn against them. 

Finally, I’d like to thank everyone that stood with us BIPOC and advocated for our voices to be heard. 

I watched this all go down and I absolutely think what happened here is incredibly important to illustrate just the level of overt racism that is lurking in the Marvel fandom. 

I am one of four mods of a small server for the Darcyverse, which keeps to itself generally. Until the day before yesterday, I hadn’t interacted with anyone involved in this incident. The response of this server - a server for all mods of servers related to the Marvel universe - to concerns raised by POC in their space was to summarily ban anyone who spoke out about it or up in their defence (including myself). 

This wasn’t a question of personal grudges and in-fighting, this wasn’t a small misunderstanding, this was overt racism and it is completely unacceptable. 

I am one of the Darcyverse mods as well, and what happened above is absolutely reprehensible. I watched bipoc get shut down, told we were using the race card, told we were witch hunting, called names. BIPOC were told to keep quiet. Then they kicked everyone who dissented out. I can’t even begin to describe what this experience was like but I do know this: overt racism is very real in your fandom circles. It is within high positions of power in the marvel fandom. This was not acceptable, and if this was meant as a way to shut us up, buddy you picked the wrong group. 

I am also a Mod on the Darcyverse server, and was in the room during the situations that went down on both days.  It occurred just as @bangyababy described.  I’m still trying to process what I witnessed in that room.  Mods and members of the Marvel Mods Server absolutely spoke over, shut down, and threw out BIPOC members who expressed concern about their safety.  They also threw out anyone who had spoken up in support of the BIPOC members.   It was outrageous.  It was racist.  It was WRONG.

Add a popular movie you’ve never seen, I’ll start: Space Jam.

Titanic

Inception

Citizen Kane

Original Star Wars movies

All of the above and Jurassic Park.

Almost every movie nominated for an Academy Award in the past  …  however many years?  (But I don’t want to be lectured when I go to the movies, so is it any wonder?)

Renaming Prompts

Hi there!

In light of [gestures at world] and discussion today among the mod team and other bingo participants, we’ve decided to rename a few of our prompt squares, specifically “miscegenation” and “Pro-Nazi.” We thank those of you who have trusted us with your concerns and brought this to our attention.

We’re sorry for the pain we’ve caused thus far and will be working to correct it. The continued harm to participants is not acceptable and there are alternative terms we should have switched to using instead.

The original intent with “miscegenation” was to copy the language of the 1930 Motion Picture Code, in part to show how heinous it was, but intent does not excuse impact. This prompt will be renamed “Interracial Relationship.” We’re also changing the prompt previously titled “Pro-Nazi.” The name has been causing a great deal of distress and confusion, and after lengthy discussion we have decided to rename this prompt “Nazi content.”

We would like to reiterate that our list of prompts was compiled from the many, many reasons why works have been censored/challenged/banned. The entries included do not reflect mod support for any specific banned work or prompt, and we continue to encourage you to creatively subvert prompts as you see fit. However, we hope the new prompt names make our personal stances more clear (and, to that end, the Anti-Nazi prompt is staying right where it is).

Here is what we’re doing to move forward:

We will reblog this post with an update when we know how the technical limitations of our backend will allow us to resolve this. 

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Thank you for hearing our concerns and making actionable steps to course correct.

That being said, your “reasoning” for using the term “miscegenation” in the first place troubles me deeply. It suggests that you knew how racist it was to begin with, but you still chose to use it sans any context whatsoever to make it clear to your participants that it is an unacceptable term to use in regards to interracial relationships today. 

I have spoken to several participants in this challenge. None of them knew what the term really meant. Many of them were non-native English speakers. Several of them were too young to be around when we dealt with the same iteration of this debacle in 2007. By not properly putting this term in context, you set up your participants to unwittingly partake in racism, not to mention all the potential readers in fandom, especially fans of color, who would have been harmed by the perpetuation of a racist and offensive term that implies the corruption of white purity and the connotation that black/people of color are less than human. That is an outrageous failure of foresight. 

I bring this up not to further shame you but to ask you: you say you have dozens of people on this project of various backgrounds. How did this get past so many people without anyone bringing up the implications of using this term as a prompt? To put it plainly: where are your mods of color? Do you have any? Because if you could not foresee the potential disaster this prompt would have been, I am very concerned about how you as a team will be able to handle a challenge that has so many prompts that deal specifically with racism sensitively and effectively so as to do no further harm. 

Also the issue?? With “pro-Nazi”? Is not the terminology. It’s the fact that when asked, you specifically said that should legitimate pro-Nazi content be submitted, not a subversion not a condemnation not a critical take but CONTENT CELEBRATING NAZI IDEAS, you would allow it in your collection. You would promote it just like any other work. The fact that you’ve made the tag itself vaguer is not helpful and again wasn’t the original issue at all!

Hate speech is not free speech, and promoting it is NOT deplatforming.

Just so we’re clear: this isn’t good enough. Promoting, encouraging and publicising work featuring hate speech should not be welcome in fandom.

As a reminder: other prompts the mods have seen fit to include but not address are “Mohammed eating pork” which is explicitly islamophobic, and multiple prompts featuring sexual violence including one based on a film in which an infant is raped.

I wonder if there’s been any thought of reconsidering decisions like these, in light of recent events? Certainly being able to have open discussions of difficult subjects within fandom is important —but it’s also important for fans to be able to choose to avoid painful and triggering topics; after all, that appears to be part of the mandate of the bingo, with its advocation for full and careful tagging.

Especially in cases like the word “miscegenation”, which is a specifically racist dogwhistle (and for which the post itself substitutes the far less inflammatory “interracial relationships”) it seems needlessly insensitive to use it, and to encourage its use at all, when other, less derogatory terms could as easily replace it.

In response to this I received the following message from @bannedtogetherbingo2020 (with a follow up message saying I could post this). I hope the mods will, after their discussions, post a similar update on their own blog as promised.

I’ve been, for the most part, impressed with how they’ve handled questions and problems so far, especially given the inherently fraught nature of this event, and I hope to see that continue.

I do think it’s important to consider participants in the event as deeply as one would possible readers of the results, and take every care to avoid making this into something that by its very nature only people with a great deal of privilege can safely participate in.

@bannedtogetherbingo2020 This is not enough. You have been informed that this is a racist term. You may or may not already know that we have ALREADY gone through this as a fandom community back in 2007. 

A Harry Potter kink prompt community used “miscegenation” as a prompt. Spoiler alert: they responded very badly when Zvi (a black fan) called them out on it and asked them to use the term “interracial” instead. (Here is another collection of posts which can attest to the racist connotations of the term). 

“It’s too hard to fix” is NOT a good enough excuse to not try to ameliorate the harm you are causing right now at this very moment. You can’t change the bingo cards? Fine, but your participants deserve to know RIGHT NOW that the term is racist. They deserve to be told that if they fulfill the prompt and post it, it should be tagged “interracial” and include NO MENTION of the original term; I can tell you right now that you already have one work in your collection where this is tagged with that term. They deserve to know the full context of the term because I guarantee you that NONE OF THEM want to be unwittingly racist. But more importantly, Black people and other POC deserve to be able to move through fandom spaces without being confronted with racist microaggressions (in perpetuity but ESPECIALLY RIGHT NOW). 

You cannot wait until next year to fix this. You have to address this NOW. Whether it’s by including this information in your update tomorrow or sending out an email blast to your participants, or cross-referencing all the cards you have already sent out where this was included as a prompt, you need to address it sooner rather than later. 

@bannedtogetherbingo2020 As a participant, I’d really appreciate you listening to the community on this (especially fans of color) and amplifying blackestglass’ links that she put together on your own platform. If the squares aren’t able to change at this point, that’s one thing. But the onus to educate people on the charged terms you have used shouldn’t fall on people like @blackestglass. It should be on you.

As blackestglass says, your list of prompts does not indicate the term itself is offensive nor does it give a suggested alternative to use when posting. I hope to see you include and inform other participants of the bingo. It was a mistake to use this term and you should be working to mitigate that harm now, not just next year. 

I hope I can look forward to seeing an update on your own blog.

This event is doing a seriously ABYSMAL job at addressing the concerns of POC at the moment. Anyone participating in this event, you really should do your research and know that while you’ll be posting to the event with your chosen username, the mods remain anonymous.