You make good posts. Don’t worry about what idiots on the internet think.

One poster in particular in that thread can go fuck themselves, but honestly I feel a huge Fuucck all you to the upvoters and other posters whining about “but you’re alienating your white allies” bullshit.

Don’t let these assholes drive you out, or define your relationship with yourself, much less this site. Don’t internalize your anger, externalize it and know that the problem is them.

Fuck you tempest, you fragile asshole. Fuck off back to reddit, fuck off back to twitter, and fuck off in general.

I would really miss you. Yours is one of the first usernames I started recognizing, because I always love your posts and comments. I think you’re wonderful. 💗

We already talked, but I didn’t see this post til now - happy to have you around, glad you got an outpouring of love, and I wish you all the best!

Sending love and good vibes!

All the hate to those haters. Other people unable to contend with their personal contradictions is not your fault and you’ve handled yourself remarkabley despite the recent stream of piss and shid from people who don’t know the first thing about you. I see you, hear you, and appreciate your presence and posts. Hexbear has a lot of positive things going for it, but stuff like this shows how white it still is. I can only say that as a honkey who has had to do a lot of personal work and self-crit about what that means.

You’ve help me understand my sexuality better and you’re nice to talk to. Don’t leave, you are a comrade and we like you here.

I liked the play you wrote, Lawrence Fishburn did a great job.

I hope you’ll stay, but more than that I hope you take care of your well-being first

I’m not always the most sensitive about racial issues myself, but I’ll do my best to be out there fighting them. You and all our other bipoc comrades shouldn’t have to be the ones expected to do so, and I’m truly sorry we’ve put you in that position

I’ve been reading through the last few days of posts. Fuck those fuckers Othello. You’re one of the coolest posters here, and I’m sorry you had to put up with such repeated caucasity without a single PPB to back you up.

is always valid.

you’re cool, pls dont leave we lusted after that one time together and that was fun

I always like to see you on the site. Don’t let shitty people get down. Take any breaks that you need, but you’re a much better person than any of the hand-wringing concern trolls that crawled out of the woodwork.

I’ve liked your posts

Just know that you are appreciated. I would miss your presence on this site if you would leave for good.

ive personally really enjoyed seeing all of your contributions and i feel like you are genuinely trying to make this site a nicer place. idk what went down but id be sad to see you go

it’ll probably be good to take a break for bit, which is always nice in its own way. this should be a place where you enjoy spending your time and if that’s not happening you should be doing those things instead

To Othello: You are super cool and I really appreciate reading what you have to say. I really appreciate your perspective and all you give to this community. I hope the rest of us can make this a good enough place for you to stay. You deserve a good place where your comrades have your back. [/gen, angry on your behalf, hoping you stay]

To the white fragile people who were being assholes to Othello,: Raise your fucking standards for yourself. Read. Learn. Don’t take out your fragility and big feelings about race on black people. Do you feel upset when a black person expresses feelings about race? Do some reading about the history of racism. Do some emotional work. Don’t turn your ignorance and your feelings into a burden for black people. Don’t take out your insecurities, your anger, your fragility, your fear on black people. Deal with it yourself. If you don’t have the tools, find them. Research. Learn. And if you don’t have the energy for that, then shut the fuck up.

To my fellow white people on this site: We have to do better about defending our black, indigenous, and people of color comrades on this site. Yes, it takes work to learn, it takes time and energy and discomfort and going outside of our comfort zones. But we have to do that work, and we have to do a better job. We have to collectively create a site where our black, indigenous, and people of color comrades feel safe, where they know we’ll be there for them and have their backs. It’s fun to shitpost, and shitposting is an important part of the culture here too. But we also have to do ongoing work to make it so that when we see racism, we notice it, and call it out. It might take the mods a while to get to delete and ban racism, but we should be there to back our comrades up and make racists feel unwelcome. An important part of leftism is making sure that we have spaces that feel good for our comrades to be in. We need to be able to create and maintain spaces that are supportive. With the federations having happened, there’s been somewhat of a focus on bringing leftism to other communities, educating outsiders etc, but we also have to remember that gaining numbers by bringing in outsiders is not the only factor affecting numbers. If we bring in assholes, and then they drive out people from minority groups, then we haven’t actually gained anything good. We need to create spaces where our black, indigenous, and people of color comrades can stay. And from my digging to try to figure out what this was all about, it sounds like some (or all? not sure) of the users harassing Othello were from inside hexbear. So we need to do better. We need to go out of our way to do the emotional work, educate ourselves, and actively look for racism on the site so we can stamp it out.