• tacosanonymous@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      If they told the truth, how could they make a post about being a victim of the evil “lefties?”

      • Lath@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Question: How is a “xinnie the poo” joke racist when it refers to one individual specifically?
        Has it already advanced to be used against all chinese?

          • porcupine@lemmygrad.ml
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            1 year ago

            Have some perspective my dude: nobody saying this shit on the internet in English is doing it because it “upsets him”. Xi Jinping isn’t reading this. You are not in communication with him. He doesn’t know who you are. White anglos say it to each other because it makes them feel good to have a license to make racist jokes in a context where their peers won’t shame them for it.

              • porcupine@lemmygrad.ml
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                1 year ago

                Yes I’ve seen it used that way commonly. I’m seeing it used that way commonly right now. The “joke” originates from a picture of Xi Jinping and Barack Obama in which the Asian man is compared to a yellow bear, and the black man is compared to an African cat named “Tigger”. If you saw people calling Obama “Tigger” (or “a tigger”, so be a bit less subtle about it) as an epithet, I seriously doubt you’d be willing to accept claims of ignorance, or that “catch a tiger by the toe, if he hollers let him go” is just a harmless phrase that people say because it “upsets” him in a totally race neutral way.

                I’m glad you mentioned the Trump hands thing too, because while there’s not an analogous racial component, you make the joke for the same reason: it’s not to “upset Trump”, who absolutely doesn’t know you exist and is totally unaffected by anything you personally say or do. You do it to identify yourself to other American liberals as a consumer of John Oliver or Stephen Colbert’s TV shows. I think it’s petty and stupid to substitute fandom for politics, but at the end of the day, correcting you on that isn’t terribly important to me. Trump is a white American whose deliberate actions have made life materially worse for most people I personally know, and who has no shortage of public statements that are repugnant on their face. The entire US political and economic system exists to protect him and people like him.

                Why do I give a shit what petty superficial shit you say about Xi then? I promise it’s not for his benefit. I don’t know the guy, and crucially, I don’t think you do either. I believe that you hate him, but I don’t believe it’s for anything specific that he personally said or did. I’m no expert, but by all accounts he seems to be a pretty boring guy that says pretty normal generic shit about development, stability, and cooperation. I’m willing to bet you don’t speak Chinese, or have some terribly deep personal connection to China, so I’m also willing to bet he only exists for you as a vague symbol of “badness” constructed through your consumption of English language capitalist media. Media produced by Euro-American companies with a direct financial stake in manufacturing consent for a war against China. I think if Xi were replaced tomorrow with a literal mannequin, you’d still believe you had good reasons for hating that mannequin. The reason I wasted my time typing all this isn’t because I believe Xi needs to be protected from you (maliciously or not) making racist jokes on the internet. It’s because I would really prefer it if English speaking people that probably believe themselves to be kind and good and caring didn’t invest their time and effort and energy into dehumanizing and othering one of the most populous nations on earth toward the end of justifying a nuclear war that will probably end human life on earth. There are simply less destructive ways to get your lulz online.

        • porcupine@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 year ago

          Are you really asking why it’s racist for white settlers to call the Chinese head of state a yellow animal? Do you think it wasn’t racially motivated when people made similar “jokes” about Barack Obama because they “just referred to one individual specifically”?

          • Kalinus@lemmings.world
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            Ok, I never thought about the “yellow animal” angle, so thanks for bringing that up. I just always assumed he didn’t like the comparison because it was like insisting he was short and fat and since he didn’t like it, everyone sorta just ran with it as an insult. Meanwhile I was thinking “who the hell doesn’t like Winnie the Pooh? He shoulda embraced the comparison”

            So yea, thanks for the extra info.

            • Lath@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              I’d say regular people in general don’t think that deeply about these things.
              And though the skin theory sounds correct, i still think it’s about the short and fat part more. It affected his dignity and image, and as i understand it, the concept of ‘giving face’ is of great importance in chinese culture.

          • Rolder@reddthat.com
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            1 year ago

            White settlers? Some brief searching tells me the origin was from Indian social media and then taken for use by Chinese citizens who disagree with him.

          • Lath@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            So in the same vein, all those monkey caricatures of Putin are also racist as well then.

            • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              I mean yeah, depicting people as monkeys is generally rooted pretty explicitly in racism, and even white eastern europeans have been subject to racism from western Europe. Read what Emma Goldman wrote about that “conniving slanty eyed Asian”(paraphrased) Stalin.

              • pingveno@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                When have racist depictions of Eastern Europeans as monkeys been a thing?

          • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            In the origin of the meme, by your logic, Obama was compared to a tiger.

            Is Obama orange and striped with a white belly?

    • abraxas@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      I’ve gotten into arguments in this instance in WorldNews (if I recall) where I strongly disagreed with communists on something. Nobody ever banned me.

      Keep up the good work, mods, and thanks for addressing someone’s ban complaint

        • Starshader@lemmy.mlOP
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          1 year ago

          And calling the uhygur genocide bad is spreading nazi disinformation ? Hahahaha

          • Советский Союз@hexbear.net
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            I’m not going to look up the context, but if you’re randomly shouting “uhygur genocide” in a thread about UN voting to end US embargo on Cuba, US and Israel oppose, that specific type of whataboutism does sound suspicious like parroting nazi disinformation.

              • Tankiedesantski [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                I’m still a proud leftist, but geez nothing has made me question that stance more than seeing how fervently the tankies deny genocides and defend aggressive warmongering—as long as the country perpetrating it is one that calls itself “communist”, or is a successor to one that used to call itself communist.

                If that were true then we’d all be falling over ourselves to defend Pol Pot instead of calling him a shit and a CIA puppet and not wanting anything to do with him.

                  • Brak [they/them, e/em/eir]@hexbear.net
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                    1 year ago

                    bud im going to sincerely tell you to re-evaluate this take. i don’t have the time to deconstruct it for ya, but the “uyghur genocide” claims are basically an astroturfed campaign by an evangelical christo-fascist named Adrian Zenz.

                    his offensive bullshit got amplified by the US because they’re ramping up for a second cold war with China. there’s a lot you can be critical about with China if you want, but you should base it in reality.

                    i believe you’re leftist, you just have a bit more deprogramming to do when it comes to imperialism. that’s the hardest part for a lot of Americans since you’re trapped in the belly of the war beast.

                    you already got a lot of the way there by supporting Palestinian liberation. You don’t have to take my word for it either, just dig into some other sources about this topic.

                  • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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                    1 year ago

                    Where is the violent rebellion? If a genocide is happening, the people being genocided always fight back violently. Where is it?

                    Oh, the narrative relies on Uyhgurs all being sheep who line up to be killed, huh. Strange how overtly racist that part is given how many “leftists” believe the narrative.

              • raven [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                You see that’s kind of where the problem is. You can say there’s a genocide and I can say “where” and that gives me the vibe of a genocide denier. I’ve looked for evidence, I’ve asked for evidence, but the best I’ve ever gotten is a satellite image of some prison in China, some (AI padded) mugshots with no context, and some thorough browbeating by very serious liberals.

                Let me put this another way. I’m of Jewish descent. My great aunt was in a camp. I’m not trying to “deny” any genocides, but what should my standard of evidence be? Particularly when there is a clear incentive for western media to create false narratives about their enemies, and have done so before?

                If you have something to present that I haven’t seen, I and the other “tankies” are wide open to engage with it.

                  • raven [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                    1 year ago

                    Pretend all you want that you’re “just asking questions”
                    That’s pretty much exactly the same as the Israeli line

                    vibes of a genocide denier

                    doesn’t change facts.

                    What facts! I’m still waiting for one. We can go round and round all day but until you show me something to center this on it’ll be a waste of time. In 30 years even your ABC will quietly walk back their claims of genocide and I hope when that happens you will tell the people around you not to trust the same sources that lied to you.

              • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                Ok, the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia committed genocide when they were nominally communist at the time. Is that good enough for you? It’s the most noteworthy example I can think of. Actually maybe the Shining Path too, in Peru. I never liked them or their methods.

                The supposed genocide in Xinjiang is not at all the same thing. There’s no open warfare, rebellion, nothing to suggest what western nations are claiming is happening. The only evidence I’ve seen is that prisons exist in Xinjiang, and their prisons are much like prisons anywhere else on the world. All other evidence I’ve seen comes from one specific person, the deluded mind of Adrian Zenz. A man who cannot speak Chinese, has never lived in China, and he’s one guy.

              • Infamousblt [any]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                Horseshoe theory only makes sense if you don’t think about it for even one second.

                So, not surprised it makes total sense to you

                • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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                  Horseshoe theory doesn’t make sense. That’s the thing.

                  Until suddenly you start seeing people who call themselves leftists denying genocide. Which is something we usually think of as being a quality of the far-right.

                  (The obvious solution here, of course, is that these people who call themselves leftists…aren’t. Because if leftism is about equality, there’s nothing equal about subjecting a people and preventing the continuance of their culture.)

                  • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                    1 year ago

                    99% of the time, calling someone a genocide denier is just burden shifting. Genocide is a crime; you have to prove it happened, you can’t simply assert it did and then smear anyone who asks for evidence.

                    We have spy satellites that can read a license plates and genocides, by their very nature, leave a lot of evidence. If there were a genocide in Xinjiang we’d have what we see in Palestine: tons of documentation in a wide variety of news outlets about crimes against civilians and actions like UN officials resigning in protest.

                  • Infamousblt [any]@hexbear.net
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                    1 year ago

                    Where are leftists denying genocide? I’ve never heard a leftist deny a genocide, ever.

                    The reason horseshoe theory only makes sense if you don’t think about it is because it is entirely and completely surface level. A good recent example is that both the far left and the far right want to end the country of Isreal. So if you hear someone on the far left say “I don’t think Isreal should exist” and someone on the far right say “I don’t think Isreal should exist”, if you don’t think about it, you would conclude “wow they want the same thing! HORSESHOOOOEEE!!!”

                    When the reality is that the right doesn’t want Isreal to exist because they hate Jews and don’t want Jews to exist, and the left doesn’t want Isreal to exist because Isreal is a genocidal apartheid settler colonial state. The left’s viewpoints have nothing to do with the ethnicity of the people who live in Isreal, and the right’s viewpoints have nothing to do with the actions of the country of Isreal. Therefore any actions taken by the right or the left towards their statement of “I don’t think Isreal should exist” would be entirely and completely different. Although they’re saying the same thing on the surface, literally 1 second of thought is all it takes to realize “oh those are actually entirely different things.”

                    So if you think a leftist is denying a genocide somewhere and you start crying “MUH HORSESHOE THEORY” it just means you haven’t spent any time thinking about it. I bet if you did think about it you’d learn something.

              • HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                Hm, so you’re saying that every political faction “denies genocide and defends aggressive warmongering”? Could it perhaps be that every faction gets accused at one point or another of genocide and aggressive warmongering, and it’s your responsibility as a political person to use your brain to figure out who is lying?

                • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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                  so you’re saying that every political faction “denies genocide and defends aggressive warmongering”?

                  No. Leftists who aren’t tankies don’t.

                  • HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]@hexbear.net
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                    I’m a leftist who isn’t a tankie. I don’t much care about China and I think the struggle for liberation can only be fought where we are at. I don’t uncritically accept the propaganda and the worldview of the state I seek to destroy at face value. Thus I do not accept claims about “genocide” committed by the US’ main rival without good evidence. Having principles and critical faculties are important to my politics. What about you? What makes you, someone who identifies liberals as “center-left,” significantly different from them? Your conditional support for Palestinian liberation?

                • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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                  There’s a big difference between being upset at some difference in ideology and looking at people sincerely defending or denying a genocide in the name of that ideological difference.

                  • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                    1 year ago

                    There was a 2020 statement to the UN, read by a Cuban representative, speaking on the behalf of 45 other countries who were endorsing China’s policy on Xinjiang. Among those countries are Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Belarus, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, Sri Lanka, Palestine (this one is important), and Myanmar.

                    These places are completely disparate in terms of geography and state ideology, yet they all came together to very solidly proclaim China’s policy in the region does not constitute genocide. Palestine and Yemen in particular seems very egregious to me, because if anything those should be aware of what an ethnic genocide looks like, and yet they endorsed Cuba’s statements on China. Furthermore, China’s Xinjiang program ended in 2019 as far as I know. This is part of the statement those nations endorsed:

                    “China has undertaken a series of measures in response to threats of terrorism and extremism in accordance with the law to safeguard the human rights of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang. There was no single terrorist attack in Xinjiang in the last three years. People of all ethnic groups enjoy their happy life in a peaceful and stable environment. China maintains openness and transparency by, among other things, inviting more than 1,000 diplomats, officials of international organizations, journalists, and religious persons to visit Xinjiang who witnessed Xinjiang’s remarkable achievement.”

                    At a certain point maybe you need to look in the mirror and ask if it’s yourself who’s clouded by ideology in this matter

            • Starshader@lemmy.mlOP
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              1 year ago

              Except that I’m a Swiss socialist and that I’m taking my sources from very left wing ONG that I work with ?

              • sharedburdens [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                getting your sources from a “very left wing NGO” how about actual socialists if you’re a ‘socialist.’ I get that you’re Swedish Swiss, we have more people in prison doing forced labor in America than in these ‘genocide camps’ so it’s really hard to take people seriously when they act like ‘genocide’ in China should somehow be at the forefront of what leftists in the west concern themselves with.

          • WhyEssEff [she/her]@hexbear.net
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            if i had to guess, probably. it’s somewhat of a plausibly-deniable dogwhistle for ‘asian = yellow’. not saying you meant that, just that I don’t blame the mods for their hypervigilance here

            • Starshader@lemmy.mlOP
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              1 year ago

              Oh wow. I honestly didn’t thought about that. I may be an ass sometime but… not like that :o !

                • raven [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  There’s no racial component to it at all

                  That’s a pretty bold statement to make. Have you seen the west?

                • Garfield@lemm.ee
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                  1 year ago

                  i wonder why western redditors found a depiction of an asian president as a fat yellow bear and a black president as a character called Tigger so funny 🤔 definitely no racism here, no sir

                • Tankiedesantski [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  1 year ago

                  Wow, look at this racism denial from the same person who was criticizing Tankies for genocide denial.

                  “The meme was started by a Chinese person, therefore it can’t be racist” is just a new veneer on “black rappers use the n-word in music, therefore it’s not racist if I use it.”

                • autismdragon [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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                  1 year ago

                  Have you considered that the meme might have different impact coming from a Chinese person ribbing their leader than a white westerner echoing it? The former might be “light ribbing” but the later is racist. Who says a thing matters significantly on whether its ok to say. You know this very well because I’d hope you’d know that its not ok for white people to use the soft r n word even though many black people use it.

                • Bassword [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  1 year ago

                  the Chinese government decided to crack down on it hard

                  Deleting some memes from Weibo isn’t a “hard” crackdown, westerners just want to pretend it is and for some reason still care ten years later.

              • boredtortoise@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                Yeah, the comments of yours in the modlog are rude but the mod is definitely reaching and banning you for dissent

        • pingveno@lemmy.ml
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          Taken very seriously, and applied very selectively. That mod team loves to put their thumb on the scale.

        • Starshader@lemmy.mlOP
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          1 year ago

          So if someone say Christianism sucks because it’s a religion and I respond by saying all religions sucks, is that whataboutism ? Excuse me if I just think that it’s better to criticize everyone than a specific group of person…

          • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            Nations are a sociological formation that objectively exist in the world. Even fucking fascists have better education than you, and not because their education is impressive.

    • boredtortoise@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Ah. World news again. The modlog really needs to show which mods are behind the wrong actions. Even lemmy code of conduct says that to fix a mod action it should be taken with the mod in question.