The murders targeting Asian women in Atlanta are racist, appalling and vile. I'm furious and sending love to all API friends who're dealing with grief and fear in the aftermath. But I also want to talk to fellow white people, especially those who, like me, are parents of boys.
-
-
Does he fully understand the extent to which YouTube's algorithm, especially when you watch gaming videos, is a radicalisation pipeline? Of course not: he's 8. But that's not too young to *start* the conversation: to begin explaining that not everything online is good or true.
Show this thread -
He's old enough to understand that some people are treated differently because of their skin colour or where they come from, and that this isn't okay. Old enough to learn why I get cross when his virtual school history texts talk benignly about "settlers" instead of "colonisers."
Show this thread -
Does he always understand everything right away? No. But that's the point: these aren't one-and-done conversations that you save up for when your kid is eighteen and already potentially a decade plus into being exposed to shitty views on the internet without your intervention.
Show this thread -
You talk about the hard stuff early in large part so that *talking about it at all* is as normal as discussing math homework: so that you can *keep* talking about it, in more and more detail, the older your kid gets. THAT is how you combat radicalisation.
Show this thread -
The point being, fellow white people: way too many of us grew up in social cultures where race wasn't discussed, or where we were taught colour-blindness, or given pat speeches about "the melting pot," and it's other groups that suffer when our own bigoted chickens come roosting.
Show this thread -
It's a cycle that WE need to break, and that starts with talking to our kids about race, gender, culture - about all the stuff we've been raised to think is Too Hard and shouldn't they be older first, it doesn't really apply to nice folk like us anyway - while they're still kids.
Show this thread -
Because otherwise, this is the result: Dylan Roof, Brock Turner, Kyle Rittenhouse and now this murderous racist asshole. All young white men barely into adulthood; all radicalised before then. Culturally, this is our issue. Let's fucking fix it already.
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
It is so darn easy for them to go to the wrong places. On his school Chromebook, my 6yo got to a really awful game site just by typing the first letter of his first name in the search bar. I could not block it myself, but had to contact school admin.
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
-
-
Ugh. THIS. Our son is 5 and knows how to bring up standard youtube now on his chromebook we had to buy for school, and I’m honestly finally thankful that my ADHD and Autism allow me to pick up his video audio whether I want to or not, b/c he loves Minecraft videos, and WHEW =\
-
It’s so hard to explain THAT young why the Mother Goose Club Let’s Plays are so much more suited to him than rando dudes making game content for adults, not even getting into how THOSE videos are the prime targets for starting an algorithm pipeline to the radical shit.
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.