You're viewing part of a thread.
I think there were two links to the gore page people post and a couple of responses saying you couldn’t even talk about tiannamen square.
The first is clear what it is, I’d call the second one sinophobic because it’s patently untrue and is basically an anti-china buzzword now. Idk why mods did what they did.
Genuine question, is criticism of the Israeli government, even based on falsehoods or misunderstandings, antisemitism?
To say that reference to a historical event that the CCP doesn't believe happened the way the west does is sinophobic is on the same level. At best you'd have people with unjustified animus towards the government of China but not its people. After all, is the claim that the people of China collectively slaughtered those student protesters demanding reasonable changes to a corrupt system or that the government did so?
Genuine question, is criticism of the Israeli government, even based on falsehoods or misunderstandings, antisemitism?
It isn't inherently but it definitely can be. It's absolutely possible to criticize Israel's government in an antisemitic way. In the same way, you can look at anti-Japanese posters from WWII that have racist charicatures and recognize and criticize the racist element, while acknowledging that Imperial Japan was absolutely vile.
I don’t understand or care about your question.
No subject of this conversation is saying “gosh, I get my information from sources which disagree with the Chinese governments official statements”.
The thing referenced in the modlog was a couple of people saying you can’t even talk about tiannamen square in China, which is false.
The reason why I would call it sinophobic is that that statement reifies the lie that Chinese people don’t understand their own history, wouldn’t defend themselves against an unjust government and would simply accept not being allowed to discuss events that happened in their living memory or else suffer punishment.
It would be like suggesting that my American government won’t let me talk about January 6 or I’ll be thrown in prison, except that there’s not the context of centuries of imperialist racist propaganda painting Americans as fundamentally lazy and subservient owing to our skull shape.
Which is what would make claiming Americans can’t talk about January sixth false, but not racist.
And it’s what makes claiming Chinese people can’t talk about tiannamen square false and racist. Since we’re talking about Chinese people, sinophobic.
The thing that makes those stereotypes racist is that during the British empires rule over parts of China and the period of time when the west as a whole received a big Chinese diaspora (using the broadest language possible here to include literal slavery), those stereotypes were used to justify mistreatment of Chinese and other people based on their race.
I don’t think it makes someone necessarily a Nazi when they say racist stuff, but it’s important to recognize.
I have a hard time imagining you didn't understand the question but I do understand why you wouldn't care to answer it. Just in case there is a language barrier or some other reason why you didn't understand a basic English sentence, I'll try putting it in simpler words:
Is it antisemitic to disagree with the Israeli government or their position on historical events?
The analogy here is that animus against a government says nothing at all about animus towards a people. Even if you are correct about the West having animus towards the government of China, that doesn't equate to animus towards Chinese people. You can certainly argue that their is racist animus, but the example of that couldn't be disagreement with the government's position in the same way that disagreement with the Israeli government's position is not evidence of antisemitism even though antisemitism is a real thing that exists.
people saying you can’t even talk about tiannamen square in China, which is false.
I'd be curious to read any sources you have for this claim. Why would the government ban information about the event in addition to arrests and intimidation towards people who want to memorialize the anniversary of the event? Would it be ok for the US to ban information about J6 and arrest people who wanted to organize a protest in remembrance? (Setting aside the morality of the changes sought by the J6 protesters vs TS protesters, they both have a basic human right to protest and hold memorial events)
The reason why I would call it sinophobic is that that statement reifies the lie that Chinese people don’t understand their own history
So, again the claim you are responding to is about the Chinese government's position on TS. As you just said a moment ago, the claim is that you can't talk about TS because the government doesn't allow it. Why does the government want its citizens to not know about TS? As you say, their own history?
As an analogy, racists in America say that black people are inherently more violent than white people. Is it racist to acknowledge the objective fact that black people are arrested for violent crimes in disproportionate numbers? Does that statement say anything at all about the inherent nature of black people? Can we not even talk about poverty being the root cause of crime and the systemic racism in the criminal justice system without it being racist?
In the same way, if the government of China is trying to hide information about their history, is calling out that government action racist? If so, then you have just given a blank-check to the CCP.
wouldn’t defend themselves against an unjust government
Maybe you kind of missed the whole point of what the West says happened at TS, but the student protesters were doing exactly that when the PLA got sent in. That's kind of the whole point. The protesters were there to defend themselves and their fellow citizens against an unjust government when they were violently quelled by that very government.
would simply accept not being allowed to discuss events that happened in their living memory or else suffer punishment.
Maybe you don't know much about how authoritarian governments operate. If the punishments exist and are sufficiently terrifying you can keep most citizens from believing the things you don't want them to, or at least from speaking those thoughts in public. And again, the whole point of the anniversary protests in HK that China went in to shut down was that they were there to reject not being able to discuss those things when China took control of the government. Is it just a coincidence that those protests don't happen anymore or could it be that the fear created by the government's actions against protesters have succeeded in their goal for the most part?
Again, this entire conversation is about the actions of a government. Whether or not they overlap with racist tropes isn't relevant to the truth of the claims. Acknowledging that the treatment of Palestinians is unjust and genocidal is not antisemitic even though there is a stereotype that Jews lie. Acknowledging that the treatment of TS protesters was unjust and murderous is not sinophobic even though there is a stereotype that Chinese people don't fight for their freedoms.
I'm not interested in having the fight you're trying to have. stop trying to have that fight with me.
no one in the image referenced (it's in the modlog, go look.) is "disagreeing with the chinese governments position", they're saying chinese people can't talk about tiannamen square. that statement is patently false and reifies a set of assumptions that are racist.
broadly, when a person makes racist remarks against chinese people its called sinophobia.
I would call it sinophobia.
Repeating the same statement doesn't make it true.
I’m not repeating myself as some eldritch truth summoning tankie incantation but to bring us back on track.
The post I repeated myself in response to is one in which you build a fascinating argument against something that was not ever said or hinted at as far as I can tell.
Rather than get embroiled in the fight you seem to want to have, I’m trying to keep things on topic.
Why not take a look?
Is the original claim that people can't talk about TS because the government won't let them or that people can't talk about for some other reason?
The statement "people cant talk about TS" is a statement about the government's actions to discourage discussion about it.
You keep repeating the same thing while ignoring that the claim is about government action.
okay, so you replied to something i said to someone else and i don't wanna get all over the place so i'm replying to it here. the quotes are just to keep things clear, i don't like quoted replies because its needlessly confrontational and weird. i'm not trying to fight you with quotes or fight you at all, just make it clear what i'm responding to here and the context.
you quoted part of my reply to someone else:
it’s sinophobic to disagree with the Chinese government, an idea I never expressed or even hinted at.
and replied:
You said the claim that “people can’t talk about TS” is sinophobic. But even a five year could follow that the reason proposed for that inability to talk is the actions of the government. So, saying it’s sinophobic to claim you can’t talk about TS is saying it’s sinophobic to disagree with the actions of the Chinese government.
again the point of me quoting that is to yank that thread over to this one because you seem to be making the same claim both here and there.
in response to that claim:
straight out of the gate, saying that recognizing the false, racist claim that people can't talk about tiannamen implies that disagreeing with the actions of the chinese government is racist is absurd.
an eagle eyed reader such as yourself will recognize that i never conflated those two, so where are you getting that idea from?
a person can easily criticise the chinese government without relying on false, racist claims and many do.
to make a bigger point and hopefully get us some understanding:
is the chinese government made up of some other non-chinese people? is it okay do use racist tropes and make false statements about the government but not the people themselves? are false claims that rely on racism acceptable criticism of a government composed almost entirely of the people that racism is aimed at?
if you're familiar with some of the dogwhistle rhetoric deployed against obama during his term, the same explanations were put forward: "i'm just criticizing the government, that's not racist!"
saying that recognizing the false, racist claim that people can't talk about tiannamen implies that disagreeing with the actions of the chinese government is racist is absurd.
So first, you still haven't provided any evidence that it is indeed false. Please do so.
Edit: Since I just know that if you respond at all it would be with a shifting of the burden onto me, I'll just go ahead and post this here as some evidence for the actions of the government to restrict speech about TS.
Second, once again, in the claim you are saying is racist, why are people not allowed to talk about it? Is the claim that the culture doesn't allow it? That the citizens around them don't allow it? Obviously, the claim is that the government doesn't allow it.
Third, you still haven't come close to proving it is racist just because it has similarities to other racist claims. My original analogy that you keep avoiding was exactly on this point:
It is not antisemitic to claim that the Israeli government is lying about its intentions with the Palestinians even though there is a racist trope that Jews lie. If we were to say that any claim that the Israeli government, which as you point out is made of Jews, is lying is antisemitic then the Israeli government is entirely immune from claims of falsehood on their part. You give them a blank check.
In exactly the same way, it is not sinophobic to claim that the Chinese government has policies and practices that ban and discourage public conversations about TS or memorial services for it even though there is a racist trope that Chinese people don't know their history. If we were to say that any claims that the Chinese government, which as you point out is made of Chinese people, is "trying to hide their history" then the Chinese government is immune from claims of impropriety about the freedom of information surrounding TS. You give them a blank check.
I don’t think I ever claimed that the Israeli government was “made of Jews”.
You’re gonna have to forgive me for this, but it really seems like you’re having a shower conversation or are getting me confused with someone else.
Are you having a talk with someone else about the same topic? That would explain some of the discrepancy…
I don’t understand or care about your question.
Way to turn OPs meme into a slam-fucking-dunk.
Turn around and find a new thread if you're not gonna honestly communicate with others 👌
No thank you.
That person asked the question I replied to and a much longer series in what seems like an attempt to debate me about if it’s sinophobic to disagree with the Chinese government, an idea I never expressed or even hinted at.
I don’t understand why they would try to do that and I don’t care about it.
How, in any way, is that turning the ops meme, which relies on holding western neoliberal governments and communist or socialist governments to a different set of standards regarding violence, into a slam dunk?
it’s sinophobic to disagree with the Chinese government, an idea I never expressed or even hinted at.
You said the claim that "people can't talk about TS" is sinophobic. But even a five year could follow that the reason proposed for that inability to talk is the actions of the government. So, saying it's sinophobic to claim you can't talk about TS is saying it's sinophobic to disagree with the actions of the Chinese government.
I responded to you in my reply to your other reply to me.
Just trying to keep this more on topic and easy to follow.