this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2025
33 points (69.4% liked)
Ye Power Trippin' Bastards
864 readers
143 users here now
This is a community in the spirit of "Am I The Asshole" where people can post their own bans from lemmy or reddit or whatever and get some feedback from others whether the ban was justified or not.
Sometimes one just wants to be able to challenge the arguments some mod made and this could be the place for that.
Posting Guidelines
All posts should follow this basic structure:
- Which mods/admins were being Power Tripping Bastards?
- What sanction did they impose (e.g. community ban, instance ban, removed comment)?
- Provide a screenshot of the relevant modlog entry (don’t de-obfuscate mod names).
- Provide a screenshot and explanation of the cause of the sanction (e.g. the post/comment that was removed, or got you banned).
- Explain why you think its unfair and how you would like the situation to be remedied.
Rules
- Post only about bans or other sanctions that you have received from a mod or admin.
- Don’t use private communications to prove your point. We can’t verify them and they can be faked easily.
- Don’t deobfuscate mod names from the modlog with admin powers.
- Don’t harass mods or brigade comms. Don’t word your posts in a way that would trigger such harassment and brigades.
- Do not downvote posts if you think they deserved it. Use the comment votes (see below) for that.
- You can post about power trippin’ in any social media, not just lemmy. Feel free to post about reddit or a forum etc.
- If you are the accused PTB, while you are welcome to respond, please do so within the relevant post.
Expect to receive feedback about your posts, they might even be negative.
Make sure you follow this instance's code of conduct. In other words we won't allow bellyaching about being sanctioned for hate speech or bigotry.
YTPB matrix channel: For real-time discussions about bastards or to appeal mod actions in YPTB itself.
Some acronyms you might see.
- PTB - Power-Tripping Bastard: The commenter agrees with you this was a PTB mod.
- YDI - You Deserved It: The commenter thinks you deserved that mod action.
- BPR - Bait-Provoked Reaction: That mod probably overreacted in charged situation, or due to being baited.
- CLM - Clueless mod: The mod probably just doesn't understand how their software works.
Relevant comms
founded 6 months ago
MODERATORS
I do not appreciate the accusation of racism. If that's the kind of tenor this conversation is going to take, I'm not going to engage further.
This is commentary on a thread that was specifically created to get into the nuances of language surrounding America. So yeah, of course I went into a lot of detail about the origins and why we say what we do.
I said that's how it comes across. I've said things in the past that came across as racist/xenophobic/ethnocentric, and I appreciate it when people point it out so I can adjust.
This just seems like one of those thing where if explaining and defending your position sounds racist/xenophobic/ethnocentric, you should consider changing your position or taking it less seriously
If you're unwilling to consider that- yeah, it might be best not to engage further
Which part of what I said do you think is racist? Because I simply don't see it. If anything, the ones being intolerant here are the ones who insist that the way they use words in their language is right and we have to all contort the definitions we've used for over a hundred years to match the etymological translation of words they use.
Seems to me you're the one policing others' language, ultimately suggesting Latin Americans aren't Americans.
For "Americans" to refer to only "US Americans" (and make sense), the term necessarily must exclude Latin Americans
Note: Another user pointed out, I should've said ethnocentric rather than racist
How on Earth do you think this suggests that?
The term excludes anyone not from the country of America. The term for people from the continent is either North American or South American.
If they want to use it, I'm not going to correct them. If they try to "correct" me for using my language in its most widely accepted manner, that's when I start getting mad. The only one policing others' language arethose insisting you cannot call Americans Americans.
The issue for me is that you were the one insisting that it was "arrogant" of certain Spanish speakers to have the temerity to consider themselves American by virtue of living in The Americas, just because the USA enjoy cultural hegemony in the English speaking world. I guess if all you want to do is reify US cultural hegemony, then go for it I suppose. But English isn't a static language and cultural hegemony isn't unchanging either, it is constantly being contested. In the context of the US renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, I do feel your position comes off as a bit racist even if it wasn't your intention. If all you were saying is "this is the commonly understood meaning of 'American' in the English speaking world if you exclude any additional content", then I agree that's true. But you can get there without claims of arrogance and without excluding the possibility of differing interpretations.
The issue is that this is a mischaracterisation of my position. The arrogance is only when Spanish and Portuguese speakers come in and try to suggest this in a way as to correct someone who uses the word American only for people from the country America.
Personally, I think that change is disgusting racist dog whistling that flagrantly flouts international standards.
But the funny thing is...I'd have thought if you're someone who uses "America" to refer to the whole of the two continents, you'd be supportive of this change. It's not the Gulf of the United States of America, it's the Gulf of America, according to Trump, which according to you means it includes the US, Mexico, Cuba, and any other countries it borders.
Although while it's at front of mind, I just did this for the second time. Not that it's likely to have any effect, the effing bootlickers.
I will not stop calling it arrogant, because it is arrogant when they try and insist their way is the only correct way. Coming into my replies to tell me I did something wrong when I did nothing of the sort is arrogant, and I won't apologise for calling it out.
I'm intolerant of colonial language. The way "American" is used by English speakers to mean "USAmerican" is actually just US chauvinism. They think they are the center of the world and so of course American only refers to them, even though there's a bunch of other countries in the Americas and the majority of Americans don't actually live in the US.
The term "American" is colonial regardless of what you apply to it. There is no acknowledgment of the native peoples of the land today called the Americas, regardless of whether you call them all Americans or only those from the country America.
When faced with multiple different colonial options, I'm going to stick with the one that is short, easy to say, and most widely understood.
It's really funny. Do they think people speak Spanish in the Americas for some reason OTHER than colonialism. Not to mention Vespucci himself not exactly being native. It's wild out here.