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Is lemmy.ml turn into authoritarian?
(lemmy.nz)
I just realised, I can't post anything on lemmy.ml
So, I checked https://lemmy.ml/modlog, there's a new moderator.
All posts and comments talking about China, Jinping, Russia, and Putin have been deleted and users banned
I understand it's offensive, but how is comparing Winnie the Poo to Xi racist?
To be clear, I'm trying to communicate that it's considered racist/bigoted by Lemmy.ml's mods, and that's the reason the user was banned.
While I see it as bigoted, I understand that it's commonly used in lemmy.world (where we are) and I'm not going to police it's use, dunk on the user using it, or report it the way I would in .ML, Lemmygrad, or Hexbear.
The fediverse is an ideologically shared space, and I'm doing my best to reasonably interact on other instances!
With those qualifiers, would you still like me to share my reasoning?
I'm not really to worried about Fediverse politics. Shits ultimately silly. Everyone will end up in their own weird radicalizing echo chambers soon enough, seems to happen in all social media.
I just didn't understand how comparing the president of China to an American cartoon character with no racial connotations was racist.
That's cool, I just wanted to be clear on how I'm trying to interact - it's easy to miscommunicate on the internet!
My issues with "Xi as Winnie the Pooh" center around the way it's presented in the Western internet. Xi is often depicted with harshly yellow skin, and with comically slanted eyes.
There's clearly a commonality between how racist caricatures of Chinese people have been created historically, like this:
https://thomasnastcartoons.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/the-coming-man-20-may-18811.jpg
https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/ckjoq7/xinnie_the_pooh_street_art_mural/ (sure, it's not a real mural, but it was upvoted 400+ times)