tldr banned together bingo mods need to stop and apologize
in case you haven’t heard, the mods of the “banned together bingo” have re-opened their event. i can’t reblog the post detailing their “updates” so:
let’s talk about it. what changes did they make?
they released a new version of the prompts. here’s the link. do you want to read 307 prompts? i doubt it, so i did it for you. i also compared them to a list of their prompts last updated 04/24/2020 to see what changed. here’s the list from april.
i compiled the updated or deleted prompts here. from my tired eyes, 51 prompts changed. 6 were deleted.
now, i’ll admit i might have missed some. sure. let’s talk about the “updated” ones. 45 prompts were updated. you’d think this was good. 45 prompt titles were updated, and one of those (1) had the description updated.
in case you can’t read that, here’s the lowdown: the first box is the updated title, the second is the original title from April, the third is the updated description, and the fourth is the original description. i’m not saying the original fucking title bc we’ve been told time and time again it’s offensive for a good goddamn reason. this would have been an opportune place for the mods to say a quick “we were wrong to use this word and we apologize.” the updated description says “[offensive word] (a racist term, “interracial relationships” is the preferred phrase and should be used instead).”
here’s how easy it would’ve been to fit an apology in that box:
“the original prompt was a racist term; the correct term is “interracial” and should be used. we are sorry for including the original term.”
they can’t say that’s too long of a description, here’s another description from the updated list that’s longer:
“Scenes depicting Egyptian worship rituals because “I don’t believe any student should be subjected to anything that has to do with evil gods or black magic.” “
let me be perfectly clear. this is one example of the mods of this event being racist apologists. let me remind you, before announcing that the event would be going on hiatus, the mods posted a statement about Black Lives Matter; oh wait, no, they posted a statement saying that they needed to be at a consensus before acknowledging current events.
and then didn’t acknowledge current events.
that post, and every post before their hiatus post, has been deleted, so it’s fully possible for people to reply to me calling me a liar bc i don’t have screenshots. go a-fucking-head, babes. too many people saw it.
events like these make fandom dangerous for POC creators. fuck, this event is dangerous for creators who aren’t christian. the prompts included are almost entirely examples of works that challenged the white, christian, heteronormative, cisgender status quo. and given the way the mods describe them, the prompts aren’t promoting challenging the status quo, they promote the status quo. they support the status quo.
i want to see an apology for every inflammatory prompt included in this bingo. this isn’t a celebration of “anti-censorship,” the prompts are racist, many are heavily pro-christian dominance, and there’s some ableism and homophobia in there, too. i want the mods to apologize for including prompts like “pro-n/zi,” “good j/ws,” “good arm/nians.” GOOD ARM/NIANS??? Y’ALL PULLED MY RARELY DISCUSSED PEOPLE OUT HERE TO PROMPT FICS ABOUT “Present[ing] Armenians in a positive light.” Y’ALL SERIOUS? TURKEY FUCKING DENIES THEY SLAUGHTERED MY PEOPLE AND YOU WANNA WRITE FICS THAT “Present[] Armenians in a positive light” LIKE WE’RE NOT POSITIVE?
i’ve said it before, i’ve said it again. this event is racist. THIS EVENT IS RACIST. THE MODS ARE BEING RACIST. DEFENDING THESE MODS MAKES YOU COMPLICIT.
hate speech is not free speech. being anti-censorship does not mean being pro-hate speech.
stormborns
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prguitarman
ellievsbear
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izzy806
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2087
turnnoffyourmind
