Pandora Parrot @pandora_parrot@beach.city

We are doing dinner the hard way tonight.

Like my wife says. Dave Chappelle may be a transphobic asshole. But the biggest assholes are the executives at Netflix like Ted Sarandos that paid him for his content and willingly give transphobia a platform.

It is racist that we react so negatively to a Black man that's trying (and failing) to talk about his experience of racism from queer and trans people, but ignore the rich white executives that gave him a microphone.

Fuck Netflix and fuck Ted Sarandos. I'm out.

Being trans. Being queer. None of that erases being white, and those of us that are white are racist.

We all perpetuate and benefit from the racism against Black and Brown bodies. Even in this mess, we're benefiting from the fact that society praises our whiteness and listens to our tears.

I think Dave Chappelle felt that at the same time as his transphobia, and confuses the two. He justifies his unjustifiable transphobia with his justified rage against racism.

In his special, Dave Chappelle setup a tension between queer people and Black people as though Black queer people don't exist and queerness is inherently white.

By hosting it on their site and paying Dave millions of dollars for it, Netflix is perpetuating that false tension.

Buried in the transphobia from DC are really good points about the racism that white queer people, especially white trans people have.

In the meantime, I feel like white voices are once more taking center stage, both inside the company and outside. It's always easier for white people to center white queer voices over those of Black queer folks and queer people of color.

To that end. Go listen to my wife's points about this, as she is a trans woman of color: https://twitter.com/hyenagirl64/status/1446652278308581379

Or to this Black trans woman that Laverne Cox mentioned on her piece about this: https://twitter.com/RaquelWillis_/status/1446516461091135496

We were genuinely making a difference out there. I'm so sad that that difference is over.

I'm doing my best as I leave to make sure that this moment gets noticed. It won't change what content is on the service, but it will get everyone to sit up and realize what has transpired and that this isn't the company it used to be.

I loved working there. Working with @coda to cofound the first trans employee resource group there. I felt like we were making a difference. Getting inroads to content teams. Talking to them about transphobia in their content. Trying to get them to understand the impact that this has.

But Ted has to let his good friend Dave go around spouting off transphobia for 45 fucking minutes because to do otherwise would be "censorship."

It's not even just the fact that they're propping up this absolutely disgusting transphobia. It's the fact that so much of the openness and respect between all levels of the company is also vanishing through everything going on with this.

Even if you don't give a shit about trans people, this whole debacle shows that the company just isn't what it used to be.

And if you do give a shit?

Well, it shows Netflix only cares about money and will hurt anyone to get it.

Well. I'm leaving Netflix. I've been there for over 10 years, and I've greatly enjoyed so much of it. but it's changed. Reed Hastings always seemed to be a bit of a tech hippie and idealist. He had lofty ideas of how to run a company and it showed. As Ted "Hollywood" Sarandos has taken more control, it's become less and less of that kind of culture.

The internal response to the Dave Chappelle thing has been an absolute disaster.

I am trying to instigate collective action inside my employer in response to some egregious transphobia I’ve seen there today. Anyone got any tips? I may also have messages my management chain kinda sorta quitting. Well, indicating I’m taking some time to reconsider working there.

Wow. Some people are so desperate for facebook that an account with 180+K followers has QTed my post criticizing it and is saying I don't have empathy for folks who rely on FB.

My whole point is that they're exploiting people by making them rely on FB. That's... not good.

If Facebook died. Like really died. It would hurt a LOT of people. In many countries, WhatsApp is basically an unregulated utility, for example, for phone communication.

But people collectively would rebuild. Hopefully something better and less exploitative and abusive.

While Facebook offers us the devil's deal of having connections if and only if we support their destruction of the fabric of society... We're in a horrible bind.

I saw a post from someone about Facebook being down being bad for folks trying to socialize with other disabled/marginalized people.

And here's the thing.

That can be true, but it's because Facebook is essentially being an abusive bully about it.

It essentially drags you in and then threatens you with losing all your social connections if you choose to leave.

That's... evil and abusive.

Yeah, they've made it easy to connect. But they do so abusively.

Still playing through it, but one of my favorite bits of the new DLC is the way the "Matrix" area works.

Specifically, it makes you hold this lantern to get in there and dumps you into this massively dark area that your lantern just dimly lights up.

But set the lantern and walk away, and the world erupts into light.

Why? Because the lantern is rendering both the light and the dark.

The thing you clutch against the dark literally is what creates the dark.

I feel bad about all the people being drawn into the grift on NFTs.

I sometimes imagine having a conversation with someone involved with it, them trying to convince me to buy one and saying just... "Why do I want this thing?" over and over again.

"Buy it so you can sell it!"
But why?

"So you can own it?"
Why do I want to own it?

etc.

Is there anything more capitalism than NFTs?

Gosh, I love the crisp smell of autumn air...