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Social media channels in China are filled with anti-black racist content, rights activists say (www.hrw.org)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (2 children)

People need to feel some sort of pride in their lives. Traditionally this has been pride in their accomplishments or their contributions to the community or to society.

But in today's hyper capitalist society, what is there to be proud of? Most jobs are a single redundant cog in the wheel and one's absence either wouldn't be noticed or quickly backfilled. And we spend the weekends doing the chores we couldn't get done during the week, or just existing and recovering, so we don't have the time previous generations had to contribute as a member of society, go to our clubs or church gatherings and bring a potluck meal or whatever.

So in an absence of pride based on accomplishments, people sometimes turn to pride based on identity - there's no criteria to meet, you were simply born and you can be proud of that. And that can be twisted and mutated into a feeling of superiority over people who aren't the same identity as you.

A widely shared type of video, created by Africa-based Chinese social media influencers, portrays Africans as impoverished and dependent, while Chinese people – often the content creators themselves – are shown as wealthy saviors who provide them with jobs, housing, food, and money.

Another common type of racist content reviewed denigrates interracial relationships. Black people married to Chinese people are accused of “contaminating” and threatening the Chinese race. Perceived relationships between Black men and Chinese women are particularly vilified.

This isn't just China, it crops up everywhere in different forms, and it's distressing on all fronts because it speaks to a failure to address a critical need of society - the ability for people to meaningfully contribute and feel accomplished.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

This hits pretty hard. Looking at the bigger picture is depressing: what the fuck is humanity’s end goal? Because it looks like it’s the heat death of the planet, all so a bunch of narcissistic fucks can pretend they’re royalty, and lord it over the rest of us who weren’t as lucky and see stepping on others for your own desires as cruel and morally reprehensible.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Note that their treatment on Chinese social media platforms aren't that bad. At least on Bilibili (which is the largest equivalent to YouTube; all other Chinese video platforms have deranged fanbases, are a lot more streaming oriented, and have 90s or longer of pre-roll ads compared with Bilibili which is way more user content oriented (but still more streaming oriented than YouTube) and has no ads in the video player), searching "Africa" leads to government propaganda; for searching "black people" (note that in Chinese this phrase can be a singular noun, a plural noun or an adjective), I counted the following results from the first page:

For content produced by black people or reuploads of these, there was 1 mayor cosplaying as some naruto character 9 singing (3 from some "BLACKSWAN" group) 1 doctor who practices chinese medicine depicted as noble 5 models (3 of which on "Anok Yai") 3 sketches 2 reaction videos on Chinese videos 1 etika 1 first responder 1 karen
For content that was produced by 3rd parties, there were 7 on sports 1 on "black people taking over france and china"? 1 on a black person in a K-pop group 1 of excerpts of a kinda sexual animation called "Axel in Harlem" 1 on greeting gestures 1 on why you shouldn't be racist against black people 2 on actors 1 of a Chinese woman explaining why she romantically loves black people 1 on nelson mandela 1 postively covering interracial relationships 1 on a meme 1 on abroad black students studying in the soviet union abusing women and suffering consequences

In summary there were 4 negative depictions, 7 interlinked with Chinese/Asian topics, and 32 positive others

Also, all types of Chinese social media platforms are only kinda less awful than their pre-Musk English counterparts, so this might be quite a bit better than the rest of the Chinese internet