We have LJ clarification at last

And on the whole it is good. They are finally acting VAGUELY professional, have created professional sockpuppet and used it, are acting like they have customers rather than whiney children to babysit and are starting to clarify everything and even doing so WITHOUT doing something silly like calling their users paedophiles or extolling the virtues of pro-anorexia communities.

Well done LJ, you have now achieved minimal basic competence! Have a cookie!

Actually I have mental images of this new staff member, Rachel, arriving at the office, looking it over, screaming “you did WHAT?!” and laying about her with a baseball bat until everything stopped twitching.


Am I all happy and shiny? No, I am cautiously testing the water and most certainly am not happy.

Why? Because this whole fiasco was ridiculous - and the fact it took them as long as it did to manage a competent response (hell, ANY response except staff members mocking people) was pathetic. It’s made more pathetic that it’s their strike 3 - we had the breast feeding thing, then we had strikethrough and now this. Each time they come back with a “mea culpa, I’m sorry we screwed up” and EACH TIME they’ve gone back and done it again. The same mistakes, the same utterly worthless customer service, the same utter ignorance of what LJ is and how LJ works. 3 times. 3 monumental screw ups. 3 events each leading me to question whether Six Apart should be allowed to cross the road unsupervised.

Now, if they follow through with everything they’ve said (and add some much needed clarifications) then I’ll be happy. But all we have now are words - words from a company that has repeatedly flipped flopped, made promises, broken them, made assurances, gone back on them and released 3 different excuses for the same thing when it hasn’t just acted completely randomly without any recourse to anything vaguely resembling common sense.

I have said it before in this journal - the word “sorry” is rather useless on its own and I refuse to accept that because LJ has apologised yet AGAIN for yet ANOTHER screw up, we’re all supposed to say “thank you” and act like it never happened and everything is wonderful again.

International blogging against racism week

Adding my post to a very important meme - I know I actually missed the week, but I've largely been getting my thoughts together about it, and it's a message that needs to be out there all the time anyway.


Whenever I come across any tangible struggle against racism (or any kind of prejudice) the most common emotion I feel is sadness.

It saddens me that people have to do this

It saddens me that this war is still being fought

It saddens me that this is still an issue.

It saddens me that we aren't past this, that we as a people, as a society, as human beings aren't better than this.

But we aren't - and sometimes I wonder why. Why does this hang on, why is racism still a scourge after decades of fighting it - is hate that strong?

But i sat to wonder - how often do we, as a society, encourage it? Or at least provide an atmoshphere that says that, at least on some level, it's OK to be racist? How often do we give the impression that all of the outrage is just a public face we have to put on, but the sentiments are ok?

I reviewed several of my days, the comments people made - the comments I made, assumptions people made, off hand words and phrases, unnecessary identifiers and it's amazing how it builds up. It's amazing how many times every single day we say or hear or do things that say "yes, it is ok to treat people differently, or negatively because of their race."

Most of it by far seems so harmless, it's unconscious, it's said by people who find the very thought of racism to be vile - but it's still said and I do wonder how much it helps to contribute to the atmosphere that it is OK. Are we all sending out signals, even subtle, low key signals, that racism is ok on some level?

How many actual racist comments do we ignore or let slide? When we're at work or on the internet or out with friend and someone says something we know is offensive, do we say anything? Do we respond to it without condemning it? Do we just get embarrassed and try to change the subject? How many racist jokes do we tell? When we hear them do we protest? Do we smile? Do we laugh?

How many times a day do we send out that subtle message that we're ok with what has been said, that we're ok with the racism?

How many times do we feel the need to identify a random person by their race even though it is utterly irrelevent to the conversation? How often do we make assumptions about people because of their race? How often do we allow the mention of race to fill in several biographical details? How often do we cross the road to avoid the black guy or speak slowly to the east asian? How often do we stare at the south asian with suspicion, especially in these paranoid times?

How often do we send out the message that it's ok to judge people based on race? How often do we send out the message that we do judge based on race?


I wonder how much all of this contributes to the racism in society. If racism is the weed choking us, how much fertile soil do we provide?