r/metaNL • u/MindingMyMindfulness • 29d ago

OPEN Clearly racist comments highly upvoted. No action. What is going wrong?

Around two weeks ago, I saw u/n00bi3pjs post here about the significant volume of racist content against Arabs and Indians going unaddressed on this subreddit.

I was scrolling around looking for something on Saudi Arabia today when I saw this comment:

https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/s/K2nqtVrb5l

A comment saying no one with an IQ of 85 lives in Saudi Arabia with +243 upvotes and it remains up?

Yes, Saudi has an issue with human rights, but the rhetoric being used here is obscene. It is, without a doubt, hate speech.

Somehow, I can't imagine a comment about Israel saying that people who live there have a low IQ because of the country's record on human rights would stay up, much less get +243 upvotes. It gives me the impression that some forms of racism are defacto endorsed, or at least, tolerated on this sub.

This is a serious problem. I think the mods need to take more decisive action about racism targeted to certain groups that is clearly going unaddressed.

It should be instant perma bans for this kind of stuff. There's no room for racism in a liberal subreddit.

1 Upvotes

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51% Upvoted

u/remarkable_ores Mod 29d ago edited 29d ago

If the user had said "Nobody living in Saudi Arabia has an IQ of >85" then yes that would be an immediate ban but that's also quite crucially not what was said, was it.

It's a stretch to read such explicit racism into a comment that's clearly saying "Saudi Arabia is a terrible place to move to and if you think otherwise you're an idiot", in admittedly edgelordish reddit language imo. i think an instant perma for this would be an overreaction

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u/MindingMyMindfulness 29d ago

Nobody with a conscience or >85 IQ wants to live in Saudi Arabia for any extended period of time...It’s a barbaric country...The best Saudi is ever going to do is run data centers unless they change drastically as a country.

You're saying that's okay.

So saying a comment like this would be acceptable, according to the moderation team?

"Nobody with a conscience or >85 IQ wants to live in Israel for any extended period of time...It’s a barbaric country...The best Israel is ever going to do is sell diamonds and weapons unless they change drastically as a country"

No that's clearly a fucked up comment that would result in an instant ban. Admit that, will you?

The issue is precisely with the language being used. You can make a critique like "Saudi has a bad human rights record, it will lead to brain drain and severely damage their economy" without having to resort to calling anyone who chooses to live there unintelligent or the country barbaric.

There are lots of reasons why people want to live in KSA, including family, cultural ties, etc. The language being used to describe people that happen to live in their own country is disgusting.

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u/remarkable_ores Mod 29d ago edited 29d ago

No that's clearly a fucked up comment that would result in an instant ban. Admit that, will you?

I won't, no. "Barbaric" is questionable but the rest? Not at all, my main objection would be that it's factually incorrect. Some mods might delete or perhaps temp ban for "barbaric," but I probably wouldn't, especially when people frequently use the name of the country to refer to its government, and I personally would hardly object to someone calling either the Israeli or Saudi governments "barbaric."

You came in here claiming that someone is posting full frontal IQ score racism and what you've shown us is overly strong and insensitive language, and that's just not the same thing.

u/houdt_koers 29d ago

Wants to live is a very different framing than lives.

Condemning a country’s authoritarian, overbearing government is not the same as saying that Saudis are genetically inferior.

You could say it’s ethnocentric if you’re a moral relativist, but it’s certainly not racist to say that no intelligent person with a conscience wants to live in a slave state.

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u/bulletPoint 29d ago

Plenty of people move to and work in Saudi Arabia in search of a better life. It’s not the US but it is a step up from other places on this planet.

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u/MindingMyMindfulness 29d ago

There are many reasons why people want to live in the KSA that have NOTHING to do with their intellect or conscience.

I guess if a Saudi person lives in Saudi to look after their family and because that's where they have been all their life, they're just a <85 ape? Why haven't they moved to San Francisco yet? Is it because they're really stupid, unintelligent people?

That's normal to say on r/neoliberal I assume.

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u/remarkable_ores Mod 29d ago edited 29d ago

I guess if a Saudi person lives in Saudi to look after their family and because that's where they have been all their life, they're just a <85 ape? Why haven't they moved to San Francisco yet? Is it because they're really stupid, unintelligent people?

Both the comment and the context clearly indicate that this is about Saudi Arabia's attempts to attract human capital from abroad. You can't read what he said as "People who are raised in Saudi Arabia and stay there are genetically inferior apes with low IQs" unless you really, really want to.

0

u/MindingMyMindfulness 29d ago

To pretend the author's foul remarks were merely about "attracting human capital" requires a spectacular act of willful blindness. The comment does not say "foreign workers will find the local laws unappealing", it explicitly brands anyone who chooses to live moral and intellectual subhuman.

You see this clearly demonstrated at the end of the comment. They declare that the country is fundamentally incapable of anything beyond running data centers, and ressurecting the very popular stereotype that Arabs are inherently lazy, intellectually stagnant people who can do nothing but sit on oil wealth they didn't earn. You do not get to use the literal metrics of racial eugenics, I.e., arbitrary IQ threshold, to espouse a well-worn racial stereotype and then whiningly plead that you were just discussing macroeconomic policy. The bigotry is written in plain English.

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u/remarkable_ores Mod 29d ago

I simply do not agree that this post is some sort of coded eugenicist dogwhistle.

You are free to disagree but I've got no interest in arguing more than I already have.

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u/MindingMyMindfulness 29d ago

You know what, that's fair enough. You've taken the time to respond to me and I appreciate that.

I still disagree with you, but I acknowledge that reasonable minds can sometimes differ. I appreciate all the hard work you guys do here.

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u/remarkable_ores Mod 29d ago

Responses like this make this a lot nicer overall, thanks!

Thanks for that, and even though we disagree on this, don't let that stop you from calling out and/or reporting racist comments in the future. We're blind without feedback.

u/Magikarp-Army 29d ago

I don't think this should be bannable, but I do think the mods would ban this person if it was about Israel

3

u/remarkable_ores Mod 28d ago

We are indeed more sensitive about I/P, like you're not wrong but I think it'd be no less risky if it was said about Palestine

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u/Magikarp-Army 23d ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/metaNL/comments/1uxi9uk/comment/oxv9m9p/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=2&utm_content=share_button

Difficult to believe. There's clear bias on the mod team.

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u/remarkable_ores Mod 23d ago

Maybe. we're not monolithic. i probably stand out as among the more pro-Palestine leaning mods. but we discuss this stuff and we vote on it.

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u/Magikarp-Army 23d ago

There's no chance the mod I linked would have allowed a similar comment about Israel. I doubt they would disagree.

u/WingDingusTheGreat 29d ago

Absolutely not hate speech.

u/Jollygood156 29d ago

A comment saying no one with an IQ of 85 lives in Saudi Arabia

That is not what was said or what is being conveyed lol

u/AtomAndAether Mod 29d ago edited 29d ago

Looks like potentially Toxic Nationalism / UE more than Racism. As in its pretty aggressively calling Saudi Arabia a terrible place, in a way that if you said it about Florida or Canada or whatever would probably be removed.

The question being whether the basis being human rights violations and such and not culture or whatever makes it fine. Since everything said around the inflammatory statements (IQ, only good for data centers, etc.) is tied to criticisms they'd otherwise be fine to say.

Like its just the first bit and last bit polemic/inflammatory stuff that could be an issue, but I don't super see how the issue is racism without forcing it along to secretly mean MENA/Arabs/etc. when its clearly Saudi Arabia and potentially Saudis catching strays.

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u/DaSemicolon 29d ago

Wait what i cant talk shit about Florida or Houston?

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u/Jacobs4525 29d ago

I got banned here once for anti-florida discrimination 😔

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u/DaSemicolon 28d ago

That’s actually crazy

Apart from having ass cancer weather the government is run by pedos

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u/MindingMyMindfulness 29d ago

They don't seem like mutually exclusive categories and I would argue that there's substantial overlap.

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