Wenn du nicht schweigst, sei wenigstens freundlich genug, damit sich niemand unwohl fühlen muss, der gerade Diskriminierung relativiert.
Sprich das bitte erst im Hintergrund an, damit die diskriminierende Handlung unsichtbar bleibt und niemand öffentlich gezwungen wird, Haltung zu zeigen.
Und vergiss nie: Das eigentliche Problem ist nie die Barriere. Das eigentliche Problem ist, dass jemand sie benennt.
Hätte ich mich daran gehalten, wäre alles viel angenehmer geblieben. Für alle, die nicht betroffen sind.
The contest invites people to write a short story based on an image prompt. However, the image description was announced only for the upcoming Wednesday, which is also when the contest ends. This means blind and visually impaired people would not have equal access to the prompt while the contest is actually running.
When this was called out publicly as discriminatory, several people defended the situation by saying that inclusion was not part of the contest rules, or that the criticism should have been raised more politely or privately.
My post is highly is sarcastic. I try to say that in some parts of the Fediverse, “inclusion” seems to mean: stay quiet when discrimination happens, be extra polite if you mention it, and avoid making the issue visible because that maybe makes others uncomfortable.
The main point is: the problem is not that discrimination was named publicly. The problem is the barrier itself, and the way people rushed to defend it.
Got it. That's such an odd thing "We'll add a description when the contest ends."
It'd actually more legitimate to say "I'm sorry that this contest isn't available to everyone." and then to run a different contest based on an audio prompt or something next time.
As for discrimination, I could write a 300 page book on the discrimination I've experienced as a Fediverse admin.
Sure, and I completely get that. It’s kind of devastating how many people react defensively the moment inclusion touches their own comfort.
The thing is: many people in that kind of contest do use proper image descriptions. Neutral, useful, thoughtful descriptions. Everything is fine. And even this contest is a good idea in itself.
But then there are cases like yesterday, where the description is technically “announced”, but only for the moment when it no longer helps the people who would need it. That makes the accessibility part performative instead of useful.
And what really got me was not only the missing description itself, but the reaction to pointing it out. Suddenly the problem was not the barrier anymore, but the tone, the timing, the fact that it was said publicly, or whether inclusion was explicitly part of the rules.
That’s the part that feels so familiar and exhausting: people can agree with inclusion in theory, but the moment it requires a tiny adjustment or creates discomfort, they start defending the comfort instead of fixing the exclusion.
And yes, I believe you immediately when you say you could write hundreds of pages about discrimination as a Fediverse admin. Especially with antisemitism, the Fediverse can be brutally self-righteous while pretending to be safer or better than other places. Different context, but probably the same ugly mechanism: people defend the image they have of their community instead of listening to the people being harmed by it.
