When you post a comment to this blog, it is not automatically published. It is held in a queue until I approve or reject it. See the guidelines below.

What to do if your comment doesn’t show up
If you post a comment and don’t see it approved in a reasonable amount of time (12 to 24 hours), and you’re pretty sure you didn’t violate any of those regulations, it’s possible that your comment got caught in the spam filter. If you think that may be happening, feel free to email me at [email protected] to let me know, and I can go fish it out if I have time. Be sure to tell me your handle/name, and maybe a few keywords that were in your comment. That way I can do a search and find it.

Guidelines for Commenting
Comments that violate the following guidelines may be deleted.

1. Don’t make threats of violence, ever.

2. Don’t address people using racial slurs. And yes, that includes anti-white racial slurs or even belittling/condescending remarks like “white boy.”

3. Don’t make personal attacks. If you’re not smart enough to win an argument without resorting to calling someone fat, stupid, crazy, or whatever, maybe you should work on your rhetorical skills.

4. Don’t respond to trolls. If someone is clearly posting a comment with the intention of starting a fight, or posting completely wrong, racist pseudoscientific crap like “all white people are albinos, science proved it”, just ignore them.

5. In general, let’s stay away from long, drawn-out arguments and fights. Once a thread descends into point-by-point refutations and denials, it has (not always, but a lot of the time) turned to crap.

6. Let’s avoid oppression olympics please. I’m not saying it’s never something to be discussed, but generally speaking, bickering over who has it worse off, or who’s more racist, is really kind of useless.

7. Try not to speak in generalizations. Don’t attribute characteristics to entire ethnic or racial groups. Adding modifiers like “some” or talking specifically about your personal experiences help reduce the likelihood that you’re stereotyping entire communities.

8. Don’t respond to a post or comment by saying “why don’t you focus on some real issues like the war/starving children in Africa/police brutality/etc.” If you disagree with the author, make a solid case for your point of view instead of dismissing its importance. If you’re not interested in the topic being discussed, go read something else.

9. Don’t respond to critiques about racism by telling the person making the critique that they’re just too sensitive, or they need to “get a life,” or that they need to stop playing the “race card.” We welcome disagreements here, but make an intelligent case for your point of view. Don’t just dismiss others’ views.

Coffeeandink said it best in the brilliant How to Suppress Discussions of Racism: “If you can accuse your opponent of “paranoia,” “white guilt,” “internalized racism,” “whining,” “overreacting,” “paternalism,” “condescension,” “being obsessed with race,” “bitching about racism at the drop of a hat,” or “taking things too personally,” you don’t need to bother addressing the content of their remarks.”