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Something about starter packs that I think gets lost when they're discussed on Mastodon:
The power of starter packs is not in some centralised mega list of say "Black people in tech," curated by some central authority. The power is in a million tiny "Black techies I follow" lists curated by everyday users.
Check it out. I'm on some lists.
https://clearsky.app/mekka.mekka-tech.com/lists
And yes, I'm on some lists I don't want to be on, that people use to block. And I mostly don't care. 
1/N
The losers that think being trans means being white and trans, hopped over from Mastodon to BlueSky, and put me on their "transmisogyny list."
But Black trans people, and white trans people that aren't racist and can see Black people, put me in their starter packs.
I don't want to be in community with the fashy white trans people that don't like Black trans people. I prefer the white trans people that like the Black and brown trans people.
I don't like everybody. It's OK if they block me.
Something else interesting:
ClearSky, the tool for inspecting blocks, list membership, etc, is built by a Black developer. 
BlackSky, the tool and moderation community for Black ATProto users and apps, is built by a Black developer.
Black developers are building on Blue Sky.
Shout out to everyone who will read this, and instead of saying "How do we get them to build for Mastodon/Activity Pub?" Will froth at the mouth about fake federation and the inevitable corpo takeover.
@mekkaokereke BlueSky is a really fun place to be, and to me it's clear BlackSky is a large part of the reason. Part of why BlackSky is able to work so well is that the community is actually able to defend itself thanks to the agency granted by the platform's composable moderation features.
Not only does Mastodon not have similar features, it seems like ActivityPub itself is an obstacle to adding them. And the community here can be so damn condescending to people who have any feedback.
@zack @mekkaokereke Bluesky is American. Give it time, it’ll devolve.
@zack @mekkaokereke BlackSky is an unalloyed good and I am glad that is working out so far.
That said, the question I keep asking myself is which of the following two things is more likely long term:
-Is it the decentralized community tool improving its moderation tools enough to provide a similarly safe haven?
-Or is it the corporate option run by crypto/blockchain people doing the right thing when safety of users conflicts with monetization?
I'm rooting for everybody on BlueSky, particularly the Black users, who were the heart of Twitter, and have not been truly safe in the Fedi to this point.
But part of me worries a whole lot of people are letting corporate America promise to hold the football for them once again.
It makes me terribly sad that we as a community failed so badly in making the Fedi an all inclusive space.
However, I wouldn't put too much blame on technology, when it comes to find the reasons why so many Black people didn't find this platform welcoming, or even outright hostile.
I reckon, people make the difference.
This is truly sad, as I believe that a self organised network is intrinsically a better choice than corporate ones, even if the latter seem friendly.
@mina @zack @mekkaokereke I mean, yes, the people make a difference, but even if you have a dedicated admin and maybe even support team for them, they don't have all the tools they need to make a safe space for their users. The people who built the technology don't see the need for it, because it's not their experience, just as makers of sensors for hand dryers didn't realize their tech doesn't work for brown hands, because it was only white hands that built it.
I had no idea of the hand dryer thing. This is wild.
And you're probably right: If you proudly think of yourself as being "colour blind", you're likely to miss a lot of important stuff going on.
When tech products are designed and built without inclusion in mind, dark skin...
Can't get soap (funny! 
)
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/87QwWpzVy7I
Can't get accurate Pulse Ox readings (not funny. 
)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sucYGYFLPKs
I bookmarked these.
There will be plenty of opportunities for sharing.
Cheers mate!