OTW reprimands & punishes volunteer of color for speaking out against racist practices

If you at all care about the working conditions of OTW volunteers, then you must be made aware of what OTW just did to one of their volunteers of color.

You can view the entire piece here - which I highly encourage you to - as it's the letter sent to volunteer, Dhobi Ki Kutti, as apart of the first steps of Constructive Corrective Action Procedure (CCAP). In effect, it is OTW punishing Kutti for speaking out against the racist practices of OTW towards their own volunteers.

Please read the full letter if you can for the full context. I'll post a few excerpts from the letter + Kutti's response. It should go without saying, but what OTW has sent to Kutti is deeply inappropriate given that Kutti has been speaking out against the racist treatment of their volunteers of color. To reprimand and punish Kutti for speaking out against this is extremely telling of where OTW stands in regards to anti-racist practices, and have shown that they are willing to maintain a space that is hostile towards their volunteers of color for the sake of their white volunteers' and board members' comfort.

For the letter itself, key highlights include:

-Accusing Kutti of publishing confidential internal documents:

Several volunteers have also reached out to us with concerns that you have shared the contents of internal communications publicly in violation of the Wrangling Communication Policy. As you agreed when joining the Tag Wrangling team,  [Link to How_to_talk_about_wrangling_in_public redacted] specifically prohibits the posting of internal communications externally which have not been made available to the public. "Broad topic discussion is acceptable, but giving specific details or copy/pasting quotes from mailing list e-mails or Slack rooms to public spaces is not. Doing so may be subject to CCAP or immediate dismissal.” This includes quoting internal conversations or emails directly. It seems that you've been in violation of this policy a number of times over the last month or so in posts where you have made a point of referencing and posting internal communications or quoting conversations externally. The specific incident cited to us in several reports is in regards to the comment you made on this post: https://www.transformativeworks.org/the-otws-commitment-to-safety-responding-to-recent-concerns-about-ao3/ The concerns that have been relayed to us include the way that particular violation of policy has impacted the volunteers' well-being. Your willingness to share internal details publicly has made them feel disconcerted and unsafe. Some have also said that they feel their privacy has been invaded.

-Made volunteers "uncomfortable" for discussing "tense topics" (it's clear that they mean racism)

Additionally, while this is not a policy violation, a number of volunteers have informed us they feel that the way you have repeatedly brought up tense discussions in public rooms has made the work environment unpleasant. While we agree that the issues you’ve highlighted are important, many are things that can’t be addressed quickly, and will require a lot of time and effort from the org. We don’t want you to feel that conversations about change are unwelcome, but we would ask that you be more understanding of the fact that not everyone wants to participate in them. We also want you to understand that the changes you’re asking for require an immense amount of work from volunteers who already have an existing workload. All in all, these aspects of your behavior of late have generally made other volunteers feel unsafe, stressed, and uncomfortable. It has also made Slack a considerably less pleasant environment for those who have reached out to us, making it more difficult for your fellow volunteers to communicate on the platform, and impacting both their mental well-being and their desire to actively volunteer with the OTW while it continues.

-Actions against Kutti:

Actions:

- Due to an abundance of caution, cease linking to social media posts which may, however unintentionally, link the fannish and real identities of volunteers within the OTW together. - Do not quote or cut and paste sections of documents, email communications, or internal conversations into external conversations or public forums. - Do not summarize internal communications for external spaces. Internal communications are not, and should not be, considered material that can be shared elsewhere (even in summary form) if they have not been released publicly by the OTW. The fact that this is something you have been doing consistently over the past month or so is a large part of what is contributing to some of your fellow volunteers feeling unsafe. - If you wish to ask a question about a particular social media post or comment on a post, and feel it is necessary to link the post or comment for reference, email committee chairs rather than posting in the Slack public rooms. - Be more cautious about how you link things, and consider whether links to other posts are really necessary when asking your questions. You will not be welcome to continue to volunteer with the tag wrangling committee if you cannot be considerate and respectful of the needs of your fellow volunteers. We hope you will take the concerns of your fellow volunteers seriously and adjust your approach going forward to take those concerns and their well-being into account. We also hope you will strive to be respectful of your fellow volunteers’ time and boundaries.

Kutti's response:

-Permission to repost and quote:

I am waiving my right to confidentiality and posting the entirety of the CCAP text below this, so that other volunteers can decide for themselves whether your actions are warranted or not. I also give permission for anyone to share this text and my response to it here, along with my org handle, in any public internet location they wish to disseminate it to.

-Response to the actions taken against them:

For my part, I had not expected the organisation would provide me such a blatant example of racist retaliation, but clearly, I had not set the bar low enough. I reject the authority of white people in positions of structural power in this organisation to punish me—a volunteer of colour trying to hold you accountable for your structural racism—by intimidating me and placing restrictions regarding my participation in OTW communication channels.

-Regarding the accusations of breaking the confidentiality policy:

I reject a cultist confidentiality policy that denies volunteers any opportunity to provide citations to back up claims of abusive organisational practises. The only quotes I have publicly posted are from official statements made by the Board and Chairs to all volunteers, and I shared them in response to a post where the official organisation statement was denying an accusation of insufficiently protecting its volunteer base. As a member of said volunteer base, I have the right to provide proof of my own experience. You have accused me of violating the confidentiality policy a number of times, without providing any other citations. Because I have been entirely focussed on demanding accountability within the organisation, it is very easy for me to enumerate any public comments I have made (copies of which I have recorded here: https://dhobikikutti.dreamwidth.org/). If you consider me citing my own words, voiced in internal channels, to be violating my own confidentiality then... you have overstepped, because I gave myself permission to ‘violate’ my own privacy.

-Regarding OTW referring to Kutti's discussions of racism as a "threat" to volunteers:

I reject your framing of my actions as a threat to individual volunteers. Anyone who will look at the history of my comments will understand immediately where the false accusation of me ‘outing’ a volunteer comes from, and can also find the evidence of the volunteer themselves linking the identity in question. I can say much more about the racialised double standards that this accusation is a part of, but it is obvious that you don’t actually think I outed anyone. Because, as the CCAP makes a point to reiterate, this is cumulative action being taken for everything I have said over the past month. That my comments have made the atmosphere ‘tense’ and ‘unpleasant’. That I have made multiple volunteers feel ‘stressed,’‘disconcerted and unsafe’, to the extent that I have affected their mental well-being. I am not ‘considerate and respectful’ enough to be welcome as a volunteer.

-Regarding Kutti's actions going forward:

I will make no statement of victim impact regarding what my experience as a hypervisible person of colour speaking out against racism in this organisation has been, because I know that you do not care. For the record, I have filed no complaint against any individual volunteer because my focus has always been calling out the institutional patterns of racialised inequity and hostility. I will continue to document this organisation’s racism till you suspend me, and afterwards. I will always be open to hearing from current and former volunteers of colour, and I will continue to maintain the confidences of people who trusted me.

-Important final words:

The Organisation for Transformative Works has been weaponising its incompetence since its inception to argue that it is not racist, merely hapless. This CCAP is evidence that despite all the issues that plague the official machinery— when it feels a sense of urgency and desperation to lash out at someone, it is, in fact, right up there with the best of liberal white institutions at performing racism masked in policing.

Again: please see the full letter & response.

This is deeply inappropriate behavior on the part of OTW. To the people insisting that if fans of color should volunteer if they want to see/make any substantial change: this is what happens when volunteers of color try to make substantial change to the organization. Their volunteers are already at risk because they don't do a good job of ensuring their safety in a general sense, but their VOCs are at an increased risk of racist harassment within the organization from white volunteers, attacks from people outside of the organization, and apparently from the organization itself!

OTW has made its stance known that it will not support its more vulnerable volunteers, and will side with white volunteers who report VOCs because they feel "threatened" by discussions of racism. Telling FOCs to just volunteer is asking them to be subjected to the same reprimanding and punishment that Kutti has just experienced.

The OTW Board Elections are over, and with that wraps up our second End OTW Racism action! Thank you to everyone who has participated over the last few months, whether by voting, attending the July 2 OTW Board Meeting, submitting questions for the candidates, sharing our posts, writing to the OTW Board, providing us critique and feedback, and more. 

Now that we’ve completed two End OTW Racism actions, we wanted to take a breath and tell you a little about how we started. We began as a team of five people in May who felt spurred by renewed conversations we’d seen on twitter about racism within the OTW and wanted to do something about it. As we’ve shared in our FAQ, the core organizers are all fans and users of AO3, including both people of color and white folks, who have been in fandom for decades. We’ve added new core organizers since May, but also some organizers have rolled off, so we remain a small and diverse team.

Since the beginning, we’ve had four specific demands for the OTW:

Harassment policies that can be regularly updated to address both on-site harassment and off-site coordinated harassment of AO3 users, with updated protocols for the Policy & Abuse Committee to ensure consistent and informed resolutions of abuse claims

A content policy on abusive (extremely racist and extremely bigoted) content; by abusive, we are talking about fanworks that are intentionally used to spread hate and harassment, not those that accidentally invoke racist or other bigoted stereotypes

Hiring a Diversity Consultant within the next 3-6 months

Committing to a policy of transparency on this topic, with quarterly updates on the progress of these projects including challenges and their plan for overcoming those challenges. These quarterly updates should be published on OTW News page and newsletters, not solely discussed in Board meetings

This may be surprising, but we only began planning our first action in May five days before we announced it! And we’ve been working really hard since then on top of our other individual life obligations. We also rolled straight from our first action into our second because of the timing of the OTW Board Elections, which made things even busier.

We’re very proud of all we’ve accomplished and everything that has happened since then - not only the work we’ve done and the progress we’ve made on our specific goals, but also the way that a larger conversation has opened up publicly about many other forms of racism and dysfunction within the organization. These conversations have, of course, been going on for years, both inside and outside the OTW, and more recent efforts have built on the work of fans of color calling out racism in fandom for decades, particularly Black fans. The discussions that have happened since May included thousands of people in fandom and have become wide-ranging, and we’re thankful to everyone who has been part of them. Organizing and running this campaign has also been a learning process, and we've grown so much from the feedback we've received. We look forward to being even better as we continue on with our specific anti-racist lens.

We couldn’t have done any of this without all of you, the community that has fostered and spurred these conversations and put them into action. We’re also really excited to see that other campaigns are coming up to address aspects of racism in fandom that are outside our narrow scope. We hope our example of what you can do as a small team can be an inspiration to anyone else who wants to start their own parallel antiracist efforts too.

Since it’s been an exhausting (but thrilling!) few months, our core team is going to be taking a pause for a few months to reflect and regroup before planning another action focused on our specific goals. We also want to figure out how to engage more of the community in our planning for future actions, since we know there are lots of people who are excited about this work, and we weren’t able to do that in the quick turnaround between the first and second actions.

In the meantime, we’re excited to announce that two partner projects will be launching next month! These will not be led by our core organizers, but by other fans who have volunteered to take them on. 

Anti-Racist Fanlore Project: An effort to update Fanlore, the fandom history wiki run by the OTW, with articles that flesh out the history of racism and anti-racism in fandom. This will be a collaborative project run through a new Discord server, and we welcome people of all levels of experience with Fanlore editing, including people who have never done it before! We’ll need people for a wide range of tasks: project management, research, drafting, reviewing, and posting to Fanlore.

Anti-Harassment Street Team: A group aimed at supporting people who are harassed for talking about racism in fandom, including developing de-escalation practices, creating resources on curating your own space, correcting misinformation, and more. This project will also be collaborative and run through a new Discord server.

You can sign up for these projects on our Volunteer Sign-Up Form. If you already signed up for either of these projects at any time in the last few months, you will receive an email with more information when each project kicks off. 

Apart from those projects, we’ll see you again for our next action in a few months. If you need to get hold of us in the meantime, you can email us at endotwracism [at] gmail [dot] com, though we may take a little while to get back to you. Thank you again for your passion and support in fighting racism in the OTW!

- The Fandom Against Racism Team

you know what’s fucking wild? when @end-otw-racism’s first action started in may, they were incredibly clear that they had narrow and specific demands for the otw, and that their demands were commitments the otw had already made. if you need a refresher, here are their demands:

Harassment policies that can be regularly updated to address both on-site harassment and off-site coordinated harassment of AO3 users, with updated protocols for the Policy & Abuse Team to ensure consistent and informed resolutions of abuse claims

A content policy on abusive (extremely racist and extremely bigoted) content; by abusive, we are talking about fanworks that are intentionally used to spread hate and harassment, not those that accidentally invoke racist or other bigoted stereotypes

Hiring a Diversity Consultant within the next 3-6 months

Committing to a policy of transparency on this topic, with quarterly updates on the progress of these projects including challenges and their plan for overcoming those challenges. These quarterly updates should be published on OTW News page and newsletters, not solely discussed in Board meetings

and despite the fact that these were taken specifically from the otw’s own commitments, a lot of people immediately decided that this was an overreach on the campaign’s part. they fabricated supposed secret agendas that the campaign must have; they invoked slippery slope fallacies to say that this would lead to mass content removal for anything on ao3 that even skimmed the line of racism; they claimed to know who was leading the campaign and tried to discredit the campaign based on that, because they claimed that those people had larger agendas.

despite all of that, otw themselves came out reaffirming their commitment to these priorities. which is great, but that was not the end of the work, because those commitments were made by the existing board, which is about to turn over in the upcoming board elections. it's essential to hold the incoming board accountable to the previous board's commitments.

but when @end-otw-racism’s second action around otw board elections has continued to keep those specific, clear demands in their focus, they’re getting hounded for it from the other side: by people claiming that this analysis they did of the otw board candidates – in which eotwr made it clear that they were looking at whether the candidates talked about any of the eotwr demands or not – was racist for not counting the work asian candidates raised around reaching out to non-western and non-english speaking fans as fulfilling eotwr’s demands.

(which, let’s be clear, they don’t! issues around access for non-western and non-anglophone fans, around the way chinese and chinese diaspora volunteers have been mistreated by otw, around translation, are all worthy issues to be pushing on. eotwr has even uplifted some of them. but they are separate from eotwr's core demands.)

so first eotwr is overreaching and trying to bring down every fanwork that could be even slightly misconstrued as racist, even though they’ve always been clear about their narrow and specific goals…and now they’re racist for not addressing every form of racism, even though they’ve always been clear about their narrow and specific goals?

it is completely valid for eotwr to look at the board candidates’ platforms and say “they did not mention these things that we are looking for”, because the things that eotwr is looking for are commitments otw has already made. it is not eotwr picking out certain “keywords” that they’d like to see – they are looking at whether potential incoming board members are prioritizing those specific commitments and will uphold them. and otw has had those commitments for three years! this is not new stuff!

also, if you read that analysis again, eotwr is not even criticizing the candidates for not mentioning their demands! they are simply pointing out what we can glean about the candidates from their platforms and bios, because the platforms are the main information we have about the board candidates right now. eotwr has been incredibly clear that they want to talk to candidates and learn more about their priorities. they've also been clear in urging other people to come up with their own analyses of the board candidates, and they have in fact reblogged and uplifted other people’s perspectives on the candidates.

i cannot stress enough that we need more folks in this space to be pushing on anti-racism, and eotwr having a narrow scope is not a bad thing. there is endless work to be done, and others who disagree with eotwr’s tactics should start their own campaigns! eotwr literally only started like two months ago with a call to action. it’s very possible to emulate them and push for parallel priorities.

advocacy work also needs groups with different tactics and approaches. my day job is in climate change advocacy, and we do our most effect work when multiple organizations are representing different perspectives and pushing in different ways. i'd love to see that kind of advocacy ecosystem built up in fandom.

but right now, eotwr is the only campaign i know of trying to do large-scale anti-racism work around otw at all. and to actively push against the campaign because you think it’s racist to focus on specific goals and gently critique board candidates based only on those specific goals? is, i'm sorry, fucking ridiculous.

The way to hell....

[EOTWR edition]

One thing that's been bugging me about EOTWR ist that one of their bigger supporters has a post up with over 6k reblogs, where they claim that AO3's elections are rigged and that people should stop voting in them and instead "get angry" and give them "noisy, angry hell on every single fucking platform you can find.", which is pretty much a HUGE red flag. Why? For one, they present zero evidence on OTW's elections "being rigged" and that's an incredibly serious allegation to make. And as we can see with Trump and the GOP, it's an allegation that can be very well used to undermine liberal, democratic institutions and processes, so it should never be used without having serious evidence or at least a solid argument to support it. Nevermind that "don't vote" because "voting doesn't achieve anything" has been a hugely popular propaganda tactic and narrative that neo-fascist, authoritarian governments like Russia have spread via troll-farms in an attempt to sabotage western democracies and as a means of hybrid warfare, so I'm going to give anybody a major side-eye who replicates that kind of narrative, even in a different context. Also, this whole appeal to "get angry and give people hell" appeal? All without any kind of recourse to...you know....TALKING with each other and finding a way forward together? In a “my way or the highway” kind of sense? That's not something that shows interest in building better policies, that's instigating a harassment campaign against anybody who doesn't fall into line and agrees 100% with you. Which, given the diversity of the fandom community, with a wealth of people from different countries, different cultures, faiths and personal experiences? Also NOT a good idea. So overall....would be more anti-racist action a good thing? Yes. For now though, EOTWR looks to be a poster-child for "the way to hell is paved with good intentions" and has a higher probability of doing harm to fandom rather than good in a very orwellian sense.

ok so the main critique (after shifting through the guilt tripping and vitriol) of eotwr’s statement on the candidates is that it’s US-centric.

And how. They never mentioned the US? Is antiracism US-centric? Updating the ToS of AO3 US-centric? Hiring a diversity consultant is US-centric?

also, an org pointing out when candidates (which include EAsian ones) don’t support the goals/requests of that org isn’t dismissing voices. Please realize that racism is not when a nonwhite person is criticized.

ooohhh the otw board meeting is coming up. can’t wait to see what happens there.

WHOOF I should update this more, sorry folks was off getting married and cranking out books. Anywho I was delighted to do these two pieces for Tia Singer, super fun goblin vtuber and radio host! Check out their work sometime, you’ll be able to find these pieces as a t shirt and possibly stickers on their shop!

synonymous here - i did a brief write up/documentation of the dreamwidth comm mess, and thought i'd let you know since someone sent you an ask about it

I'm really thrilled to see this, thank you! I'm also including a link to your transcript of the public Board meeting, since I think that's a really useful resource.

If you're interested in full details of the closing of the OTW Dreamwidth community, you can find them on synonymous's DW post here.

A chat log of the very fraught recent public Board meeting is here.

my desire to stay up to date on OTW stuff and the urge to stay the fuck away from fandom drama have been in a bar fight for two weeks now and the latter keeps losing and frankly i am very tired and very fed up with people as a whole

Hi, could you please clarify what you meant by non-Anglophone fans regarding your critiques of EndOTWRacism not caring about those fans because non-Anglophone means non-English & that excludes a plethora of fans from the Global South that were colonized by the English (like my country South Africa) and that makes me a bit uncomfortable.

Also, antiblackness is a global phenomenon & even happens in majority Black countries (once again, I highly recommend doing some research on South Africa & Afrophobia in that specific country). Being Asian alone doesn't mean someone will wholly support the very specific commitments OTW made in 2020 (where they also cited Dr Rukmini Pande [an Indian, and therefore Asian, fan scholar from India where English is spoken & even a mode of instruction in many of its schools & tertiary institutions - must she & fans like her also be excluded because they are Anglophone fans?] & Stitch without asking these two fan scholars for their consent to be cited by OTW leading to a barrage of harassment towards both individuals).

If you want EndOTWRacism to broaden their scope, you should definitely suggest that to them. But they are following the specific commitments the OTW made. Also, I have seen conversations about OTW not making enough commitments in 2020 to do something about racism on their platform by some of the mods of EndOTWRacism in a personal capacity but the main reason they are sticking to the specific commitments OTW made is because they are avoiding being accused of trying to make OTW do things they never said they would do. By sticking to the specific commitments OTW made, EndOTWRacism can hold OTW accountable for something they publicly made commitments to.

Also, OTW made these commitments in response to anti-blackness. So, centering antiblackness makes sense (and also just on a historical level - when antiblackness is engaged with in antiracist policies - the benefits of that move upwards to other racial groups - see the The Voting Rights Act of 1965 that included pro-immigration legislation that made it easier for immigrants of colour to move into the US (this was made possible because of Black Americans). Or my own country of South Africa that got rid of Apartheid in 1994 (I would be born just 3 years after that when my mom was 30) and Black, Coloured (this is a specific racial category in SA), Indian & Chinese South Africans could vote, move freely & live wherever they wanted in SA. This was made possible by Black South African freedom leaders in community with other South Africans of colour that worked in solidarity.

Anti-asian racism is a huge problem in fandom that has been discussed by fans of colour for a long time (see conversations in the early/mid 2010s in fandom about Lucy Liu's mistreatment by BBC Sherlock fans or Glen's mistreatment from the Walking Dead fandom). And with the increase of East Asian media in fandom since at least 2014, conversations about anti-asian racism are even more imperative. But that should not mean ignoring or hand waving away convos about antiblackness - especially when that was the origin of OTW commitments in 2020. If you personally have a problem with that, by all means ask OTW why they didn't specifically talk about other forms of racism or make any other statement with commitments when the StopAsianHate movement was in full swing. Why was OTW's statement so clearly influenced by BlackLivesMatter and the commitments various individuals, businesses & non-profit organizations were making to this specific movement. OTW will have more board meetings, so if you are a paying member, you can absolutely ask them these questions. I know those questions are things I have thought about.

All the best, H.

"because non-Anglophone means non-English & that excludes a plethora of fans from the Global South that were colonized by the English (like my country South Africa) and that makes me a bit uncomfortable."

I am also non-Anglophone and yes, End OTW Racism explicitly excluding non-Anglophone fans also makes me uncomfortable, because as you say, racism is a global problem.

I am not sure why you are bringing up anti-blackness and anti-asianness as if it is an either/or matter. Caring about anti-blackness doesn't mean not caring about anti-asianness. Caring about anti-asianness doesn't mean not caring about anti-blackness. Some fans are mixed race and are both. Some fans have to deal with other forms of racism (like the anti-Aboriginal slur which still gets used often to talk about Omegaverse)

The OTW's goals did not explicitly mention centering anti-blackness. End OTW Racism's goals did not explicitly mention centering anti-blackness.

If that is what the OTW and End OTW Racism want to center, they can, but they should say that explicitly. But in the case of End OTW Racism, excluding non-Anglophone fans makes no sense, because as you say, anti-blackness is a global problem.

UPDATE: Volunteer who was reprimanded by OTW calls for the suspension of OTW Board member, Alex T.

Dhobi Ki Kutti gave an update regarding the CCAP that was issued to them on July 19th. In the update, Kutti explains that their response to the CCAP had not been acknowledged by the representative who initially sent it nor any of the Tag Wrangling chairs. However, Board member Alex T. has responded and now Kutti has put out a call for their suspension.

As before, please read the full post if possible. I will be posting the key excerpts.

But to summarize: Alex T. has stood by their racist comments and treatment of Chinese volunteers and have expressed that they are more than willing to do it again. This statement has resulted in two volunteers speaking out against them - Kutti included - and one Board candidate to speak out against Alex T. Kutti has called for Alex T.'s suspension and removal from the board.

Comment from volunteer regarding Kutti's CCAP:

25th July 2023 Posted to the Board Public Channel by Spacegandalf: Also, while I know we can't know who else has received a CCAP, we can observe behaviour that breaches otw policy that continues over multiple years without any changes, and many, many people have pointed out Alex Tischer's racist behaviour (which has spanned years!) and the way Alex has made working with them unpleasant in the way they interacted with people. I just think it's Interesting that Alex is still welcome as a volunteer, but kutti is being told her actions will make her unwelcome if they continue.

Alex T.'s response to Spacegandalf:

26th July 2023 Posted to the Board Public Channel by Board Member Alex Tischer, in reply to Spacegandalf: Or, the alleged ‘racist behaviour’ that people have pointed out consists of a) telling people that if volunteering for the org endangers their personal safety out in the real world they should put that first and take whatever actions to preserve their safety including leaving the org (and at this point I would make the same statement for mental health too, some people have been really affected and to them too I’d say Volubteering [sic] for the Org is not worth more than your personal well-being.) and b) Pointing out that we require a common language in the org to be able to achieve anything. Both statements which I am more than happy to repeat and neither of which go against the code of conduct we all agree to abide by when starting to volunteer. Whereas not abiding to your committees’ confidentiality policy, which you also agree to abide by when starting to volunteer, is very much against the code of conduct.

Kutti on Alex T.'s reply:

With this comment the Board Member has established that their pattern of making racialised hostile remarks, from a position of power, is not considered by the org leadership to be against the OTW code of conduct. The Board Member has also reiterated the racist judgement made against me that my actions to hold the organisation leadership accountable are against the code of conduct. Further, both the previous remarks that the Board Member says they would be happy to repeat, were made to and about Chinese volunteers - the first in a conversation where they were advocating for their own physical safety, and the second when they were advocating for their right to provide communication to users in their own language, as well as their right to be treated with respect and equity. In both situations, the inappropriateness of the statements was apologised for by other people in positions of power - the former by a Chair, and the latter by other Board members. However, at no time did anyone in authority acknowledge that the statements were racist.

From volunteer Entropy:

I think it is the right move on Kutti's part to post what she did publicly, and call for Alex Tischer's resignation. The use of the CCAP and the Code of Conduct to attempt to force privacy above all else makes it impossible to adequately address issues such as this. The voting members of the OTW have the right to know what the people they have elected are saying, especially when it comes to racist, offensive remarks that are not just not walked back, but repeated time and time again. If one suffers no repercussions for their actions, they will continue. The first step in reformative justice is to remove those who do harm from the position which empowers them to do that harm from. I cannot abide by Alex Tischer being a sitting board member, nor do I think we must simply wait them out until their term ends this year. We should not have to "put up with" such disgraceful actions and words because the person will be out of their official seat of power soon. We should not have to wait them out and suffer longer. Alex Tischer must step down, and acknowledge the harm they have caused to volunteers by relinquishing the power they have. If they do not step down, I call for them to be suspended. No one should have to put up with abuse in the hopes that it ends soon. Allowing this to pass without counter-action taken gives an implicit pass for actions that occur in the future. This can only be stopped when we put a stop to letting it happen without consequence. I say this as a volunteer tag wrangler of three years, the behavior I have witnessed from this board member is frankly disgusting. The amount of disrespect toward our Chinese volunteers shown is detestable. Alex Tischer's casual presence in other spaces makes those spaces unwelcoming to those they have repeatedly disregarded without true consequence for their actions and words. Furthermore, I second Kutti's call for an external audit of the board. These issues run deep, but they cannot properly be addressed until we see the ways they are rooted into the organization. The OTW must embrace change, and it must be willing to admit and look into all its faults of the past and present in order to take steps forward in the future.

From Board candidate, Jennifer H.:

The fact that Alex feels comfortable enough to publicly denounce the people pointing out their racist and unacceptable behavior is indicative of how systemic and deep-rooted it is in this organization. To the current and former board members: you have created and perpetuated a culture of racism without accountability, and you have actively caused pain to the volunteers of color who work to keep this organization going. This is why there needs to be more ways to remove board members from their duties - based on their blatant disregard for volunteers of color, Alex never should've been elected in the first place and they sure as hell should not remain a board member or volunteer in the OTW.

It should go without saying that Alex T.'s behavior is inappropriate beyond belief. We should not have to wait for their time on the board to run out. If you are an OTW member with the ability to vote, please go through the contact form and select Development and Membership. As a member, they are required - by the bylaws - to respond to you compared to other avenues.

If you are not and still want to get to them, go through every avenue possible - their twitter, comments on the news section, etc. - and call for Alex Tischer's resignation. Cite Kutti when possible, cite Alex's racist past behavior, and call for their immediate suspension.

Again: please read Kutti's statement and call for Alex Tischer's resignation if you can.

Not me completely unaffected by the AO3 DDoS because I'm currently on a FIMFiction kick (and I still also have FFN kicks).

y'all. someone linked me to a tumblr called @fandomantiracism - which, awesome! like i've been saying, we need more people and campaigns and organizations working to advocate for anti-racism in fandom!

except the only post on there so far is a spreadsheet where they have broken down @end-otw-racism's post about the otw board candidates to allege that the eotwr analysis has "anti-asian bias". uh. okay. super cool to see where your priorities for anti-racism action in fandom lie.

where the FUCK is this energy when it comes to the kind of racism in fandom that eotwr has been calling out? or why wouldn't the creator of this spreadsheet use that energy to do their own analyses of the board candidates and share that instead? why is it so much more important to try and bring down the one visible campaign that is doing large-scale advocacy work on anti-racism in fandom right now? ??

critiquing eotwr is great - all organizations and campaigns need to be held to accountable to their missions and values. and i'm not talking here about people who have approached eotwr with constructive criticism about how to do better, that's good and necessary. but shit like this, where people show BLATANTLY that they care more about bringing the campaign down than about doing anti-racist work themselves, is ridiculous. if they actually cared, their anti-racism blog would be doing something more than just reacting to eotwr. for fuck's sake.

At the time of writing this, Audrey R. has already resigned from running for OTW board, and the way people have acted about her candidacy the past few days has been disturbing, but also sadly unsurprising. Please, to anyone who may read this- I know those immediate gut reactions of shock, horror, disgust, I personally find that I can't stand Republicans and conservatives, I generally hate their views and what they stand for.

But please, don't just blindly spread misinformation and fear. I know there's little nuance to be found on tumblr, but people were misrepresenting her and her policies and unnecessarily riled each other up to the point where people took it upon themselves to go after her and her employer under false beliefs.

She's a Republican, yes. But how many people have taken the time to actually look her up? She's run as an independent before, her policies aren't the conservative bs people are making it out to be, and quite frankly, in her district, there is no realistic chance for a Democrat or an independent candidate to win elections.

In one of her Q&As, she had this to say:

"One of the most important things I learned on the campaign trail was this: it does not matter how loud your voice is if you don’t have a seat at the table. My advice to #EOTWR is recruit and/or run so they can get a seat, and find ways to involve the people currently in the positions to make change."

Combining her locale, statements, and platform, she's at worst a centrist who's running with the Republicans for a chance to win and actually try to change things within the system in which she's contained.

There's no evidence of her being pro-censorship. There are legitimate concerns about the effects of social media, screens, and the internet on youths, especially because they're so relatively recent in our history. People saw her party, her organization, other people's reactions, and assumed the worst.

If people actually did research and came to their own conclusions or simply decided that a republican affiliation in and of itself was an automatic deal breaker, I completely understand that. I personally wouldn't have voted for her either way. It's understandable that candidates will be discussed and criticised, but don't make things up to make her worse than she actually is.

--

Regarding #EndOTWRacism’s summaries of 2023 OTW Board election candidate positions

Before I begin, let me say now that while I am a volunteer with the OTW, my views are personal and should not be taken as any kind of official statement from the org, its leadership, or other volunteers, especially not the candidates in question. My focus here is on the Asian candidates for obvious reasons, but this post is not meant as endorsement or disavowal of any of the candidates, whose bios and platforms can all be read here.

Do not take this as an excuse harass the mods running EOTWR. I cannot make myself clearer.

--

I am making this post to express my extreme disappointment with End OTW Racism’s post purporting to summarize the platforms of the candidates for the upcoming Board elections. It is no longer rebloggable, but can be read here.

The way that the candidates with Asian names were spoken of is deeply insulting when compared with how candidates with English-language names were discussed. Asian candidates had their platforms misrepresented, their expertise downplayed, and their lived experiences reduced down to “bringing an international presence” to the board, which was then further caveated with, “diversity alone is not going to solve the issue of racist harassment currently allowed in the OTW’s policies and enforcement practice”. While it is true that diversity alone is not a solution, it’s pretty offensive to essentially have “remember! Just because they aren’t white doesn’t mean you should vote for them!” tacked on to one of the Asian candidates’ platforms. 

End OTW Racism seems more concerned with whether or not candidates used the buzzwords they wanted to hear rather than with how racism is discussed holistically within the statements. While I can appreciate that EOTWR has a specific agenda, to say things like, “[s]he does not mention racism, racist harassment, or hiring a DEI consultant in her platform, so outside the outreach and support she mentions, there is not enough for us to conclude that these would be priorities for her” regarding Zixin Z.’s position, directly following the statement, “[s]he also mentions the need for outreach towards non-English-speaking fans and has a desire to provide support to volunteers from minority groups” is fucking laughable, especially after the initial mistake of stating that Zixin Z. only wanted to do more outreach to Chinese-speaking fans. Again, I understand that people make mistakes and that this mistake has since been corrected, but I hope it prompts some reflection on the sort of biases that would lead to such a mistake in the first place. It may have been completely innocuous, but in charged discussions about racism, please understand that it gives an impression that is difficult to shake. I do thank you for not trying to hide that this happened. 

Why is Anh P.’s lack of discussion on TOS/PAC a point against her, while Zixin Z.’s years of experience on PAC, her role as a mod on Weibo, and her background in nonprofits don’t even warrant a mention? For that matter, why did none of the Asian candidates’ skills or experience warrant mention? Qiao C. and Zixin Z. have both been volunteers with the organization for several years now, and Anh P. has years of moderation and volunteer experience elsewhere prior to her work with the OTW.

It is so fucking frustrating that despite each one of these candidates specifically talking about the need for diverse voices, they had their platforms essentially passed over because they didn’t use the right words, and it is particularly fucking aggravating to see that EOTWR will use Chinese issues as props when trying to press OTW leadership on the racism that occurs within the org, but then completely fail to connect the dots on why these candidates are running because the wrong language was used. Zixin Z. is one of the Weibo mods, for fuck’s sake. 

The entire post feels like an exercise in virtue signalling, from every time it was brought up that a candidate did not provide pronouns in their platform statements, despite every one of them having pronouns provided in their bios (why mention this detail at all? You could have simply used the pronouns), to what felt like willful obliviousness to the anti-racism stances in the Asian candidates’ platforms. It feels like the concern starts and ends with racism in Anglophone terms, on Anglophone terms.

I can respect the driving ideas behind EOTWR, even if I disagree with the way that EOTWR pursues their goals. I do believe that we want the same things in the end, and therefore chose not to interact with the many posts I have seen about the protest. However, I saw the summary post and could not let it pass without speaking.

For a protest group supposedly dedicated to ending racism in the OTW, this felt incredibly hypocritical, conscious bias or not. In my most charitable frame of mind, I can see this as misjudging and overcorrecting to ensure that there was no favoritism shown to the obvious non-white candidates lest EOTWR be accused of tokenizing– again, it is true, that diversity in and of itself is not a solution to racism. 

In my least charitable and most bitter frame of mind, I feel inclined to wonder if EOTWR, much like the OTW itself, is uncomfortable with the lack of influence they could exude over an international candidate. It would be much, much easier to push their agenda forward with more culturally familiar candidates, particularly white ones. Guilt and public scrutiny are powerful weapons and easy to wield against those with perceived privilege in our current atmosphere, often to the detriment of the actual discussion at hand in my experience. I know that’s cynical. It’s hard not to be. (For clarity's sake: I do not know the other candidates' races. This is a hypothetical.)

This isn’t a demand for an apology. I think we fetishize the capital-A Apology to the point where I find them sort of meaningless unless they are given freely. I don’t need EOTWR to agree with me, and I don’t really want to keep talking about it. Rather, I would prefer that EOTWR take action to do better as they continue in their campaign. What that action is is their decision. If they truly mean to stand against racism in the OTW, then I’d like them to demonstrate it.

--

DO NOT HARASS EOTWR MODS. I AM FUCKING SERIOUS ABOUT THIS.

Part of the problem with discussing how racism manifests in fandom and in fan organizations is that to present a nuanced and thorough take on a complicated problem, which actually consists of a number of different complex issues with lots of different potential solutions each, you have write really, REALLY long posts about it.

And people don't read long posts.

Or they read the first part and get stuck on one point they don't agree with or can't 100% agree with. So they get caught up in proving one point wrong instead of at least expressing sympathy or sharing the parts they do actually agree with.

(Or people make fun of you for caring about "people being mean in fanfiction communities" as an issue. Because caring is cringe, apparently. Racism in hobbies like book clubs and local knitting groups and kid sports leagues is also important, even if it's "not that big of a deal" in the grand scheme of things in your opinion.)

Which can have (unintentional or intentional) vibes of telling fans of color to shut up about racism. Which is rude and understandably upsetting to people who have experienced this kind of harassment. Saying "go make your own archive" implies that the affected fans of color have not been a part of building the OTW or in running AO3 and don't belong there as writers or readers, which is untrue and unkind.

Now, I know that people have a kneejerk defensive reaction to any form of "We Need To Ban The Bad Fic That I Don't Like". I have that too. And I won't deny that this is a conversation partly about content moderation. And I won't deny that within this broad conversation between lots of different people who want to do something about fandom racism, there are probably some people who are calling to ban everything they find even a little problematic. They're always popping up. I don't agree with those people.

I didn't reblog End OTW Racism's Call to Action post the first time that I saw it because my brain wanted to chew on the thoughts it inspired. I thought a lot about how exactly to write detailed policy that could explicitly ban the worst examples of fanfiction used as intentional hate speech provably for the purpose of targeted harassment, while still ensuring the protection of the queer content, the problematic darkfic, and the explicit kinky fiction that the archive was created to host (which EOTWR also cares about). I do want fans to be able to explore some disturbing and distasteful topics, even if they don't always write it well, without being censored. And yet I also thought a lot about the "Paradox of Tolerance" as a social contract and what it meant to be "Fair to Unfair Voices".

I also thought a lot about how AO3 volunteers can never review every single thing posted to the website (which was not being suggested). And about how this issue intersects heavily with the structural issues that leave some AO3 volunteers overworked and underappreciated. And the structural issues that leave some AO3 volunteers feeling isolated, neglected, ignored, or mistreated. And also how AO3 is shockingly enormous now for being the result of volunteer work on a budget that's small compared to other non-profit organizations.

And honestly, I was fucking exhausted from my job that day and I cynically thought to myself, "I'll read through the links later, but I don't really see how changing the names on a bunch of fics is going to inspire great change within an organization."

(And the people behind this online protest are pretty open about the fact that they didn't expect their awareness campaign - and that's what it is: it's just an awareness campaign - to do anything on the front of "Solving Institutional Racism Immediately".)

But then I thought to myself, "Okay, but I do believe in antiracist action. And even if I don't think some of these suggestions are workable with the current state of things, or that the OTW will ever agree to some things here, there has got to be something here that could be done right now to make things a little better."

I kind of like the idea of expanding the required archive warnings so that more well-meaning people will opt-in to tagging triggering material, which is a form of content moderation. Like the way that the "Graphic Depictions of Violence" tag works already. Major Archive Warnings are left up to the author's best judgement unless reported. And even if people repeatedly refuse to use any relevant warning tags when writing blatantly racist stories, when they get reported for not even using "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings", then we'll be pretty sure that they're doing it to be a jerk, and AO3 volunteers can suspend or ban them for it.

I like the idea of expanding the abuse policy and clearly defining its terms so that Policy and Abuse volunteers can still retain some freedom of best judgement, but also be more consistent about recognizing when someone is being a racist jerk in the comment section or being racist by gifting violently racist fic to fans of color or otherwise behaving badly. And I like the idea of improving the reporting system while keeping potential misuse in mind. And giving PAC volunteers better admin tools and other resources.

Even if you believe that AO3 is largely run by well-meaning queer women, I personally don't 100% trust that every single volunteer will be great at recognizing the many varied forms of racism, or antisemitism, or transphobia, or prejudice against bisexual or asexual or polyamorous people, or against mentally ill or physically disabled people. And part of this discussion is about when individual members of the PAC team have failed to address malicious behavior that is already explicitly covered by AO3's existing anti-bullying policy. Or that can't be solved by just blocking and muting someone.

Like, this discussion is about racism, and it's worth caring about solely for how it affects fans of color, but optimizing the abuse policy and protocols against harassment would better protect everyone. (And also, please do not assume that fans of color are not also older fans and/or queer fans who care about censorship.)

Some of End OTW Racism's offered solutions are suggestions originally made by AO3 itself back in 2020. A huge part of this discussion is just some fans (they're only, like, 5 people) trying to make some noise so that the OTW will give all users a thorough update on their progress. They are trying to raise awareness to keep the conversation about fandom bigotry going and recruit people to show up to OTW Board meetings to ask what obstacles need to be tackled. They want volunteers trying to change things internally to feel supported and for some more transparency on this subject to externally hold people accountable to their promises.

And I also thought, "Fuck it. This post is worth reblogging if only to remind people that AO3 needs work, to educate new fans on the history and present of fandom racism in general, and to maybe make one person out there feel less alone and connect them with some new friends. Fans of color don't have to be perfect to be heard."

I believe that AO3 has gotten bigger than ever anticipated and management of the OTW has only gotten harder. And I think hiring a diversity consultant, as per AO3's own suggestion back in 2020, sounds like a good idea to curb harassment of all kinds and improve the working conditions of volunteers. Outside contractors have been hired before and these professionals have no effect on OTW's non-profit status. A temporary consultant's job would be to identify where the organization is getting stuck and give suggestions on how to fight bigotry, and the OTW Board can just pick the solutions they think will work in practice with their mission statements.

Honestly, I kind of think it might be a good idea to also hire a security consultant of some kind after some of the harassment of AO3 volunteers in recent years. And if hiring some programming contractors would help the coding volunteers build better admin tools and make tag blacklisting happen sooner, then I support that as well. But that's all up to the OTW Board. And I want the OTW volunteers to know that I support their original suggestion to hire some outside professional help, so that fandom can begin to address some of these ongoing problems beyond just acknowledging that they exist, even if it simply starts with AO3 explicitly calling for more volunteers to get the planned work done.

Saying that there's nothing to be done is defeatist. Saying that the affected fans of color and their allies sound too angry or too serious or too ungrateful, or that everyone involved just doesn't understand how hard these things are, is pretty rude. I don't expect perfect solutions on the first try. I don't expect them immediately. I expect some of these things to take the OTW... years, honestly. I don't always feel very optimistic. I find this entire discussion discomforting and depressing. I'm not ungrateful to the OTW and AO3 when the community has been an undeniably good experience for me personally over the past 10 years. I want people to be able to escape into fandom at the end of a shitty day.

End OTW Racism's awareness campaign is one small part of a much broader discussion and you don't have to agree 100% with everything that they say. Or with what other people talking about fandom racism say (and some people, including academics and journalists and media critics and video essayists, have been talking about fandom racism for a long time). And you definitely don't have to 100% agree with what I've said here.

You don't have immediately volunteer all of your time to the OTW to fix these problems to be a good person. We all have other shit going on in our lives. Just... keep some of the points being made in mind moving forward, yeah? If you have a moment, maybe listen to some of the frustrations with an open mind, and maybe show a little extra love to your fellow fans who are going through it.

And if you have the energy to tear down what you think just one of EOTWR's suggestions is as bad - and they are NOT calling for every single fic on AO3 to be reviewed for problematic tropes or racial slurs before posting, that would be ridiculous, and it's disingenuous to misinterpret them that way - are you also separately talking about and supporting any of the antiracist actions and other harm reduction policies that you think are genuinely viable?