Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/06/05/alexis-ohanian-exits-reddit-bo.html
“I will use future gains on my Reddit stock to serve the black community, chiefly to curb racial hate”
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Years too late for me to give a shit. The damage is already done. The horse has run from the stable and is in the next state.
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The banning of John Brown memes on Reddit was a big fuck you to anti-racists
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Wait, they banned John Brown the abolitionist hero of Kansas? What was their reasoning? I didn’t know he was a meme in popular culture. More of a historical oddity they teach in Kansas History classes.
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Also, like, wouldn’t it make more sense to use you power on the board to add additional black voices and advocate for those voices?
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I really hope this is a sign of him growing as a person, because under his watch Reddit has done some pretty gross shit WRT allowing racism and sexism to fester unimpeded. They even forcibly re-opened the gamergate subreddit after its creator shut it down.
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Free speech doesn’t extend to anti-racists, only racaists? 
They should teach MORE of him, given what he was trying to do.
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Yeah, I feel like this is the opposite of leadership. A whole lot of “well this shit is hard, I don’t want to do the actual work, so I’m out.” Maybe Reddit will finally get a handle on these issues, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
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The guy is on the album art of the band named after the state!
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I was taught the John Brown song (same music, translated text) during a summer camp in the mid 70s. That was in a then 200 people small town in central Italy mountains, so I guess John Brown had been quite important if someone still taught his song 100+ years later on the other side of the planet.
Admittedly, I knew nothing about him until the above comments brought that song to mind and triggered a web search.
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As I recall, we spent a decent amount of time with John Brown in HS (90s, Ohio).
Was recently reaquainted w him thru the Behind the Bastards poscast:
OH yeah, forgot that cover. That is in the State Capitol building in Topeka KS. Every school kid in the area has been there at least once. It is a huge mural by John Steuart Curry and a sight to behold.
Absolutely. Maybe they do in some other states if they have a chapter on abolition. I just know that just because Kansas history is very familiar to me, we had whole classes on just Kansas history, and most people are like, “Its the state in the middle with the wheat?”
Huh. Well very cool. Yes, more than once I learned about history via a song. An example would be Johnny Cash’s Ira Hayes.
Heh, right. But did they offer a justification? I honestly don’t use Reddit so don’t follow the goings on.
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It’s not a meme, it’s the cover art for Kansas debut album!
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I can’t remember the details, but I think one of the far right subreddits was having a “theoretical” discussion of how slavery was good, as if that isn’t totally fucked up. Some people started putting pictures of John Brown up on left-wing subreddits in response, someone from the original discussion reported them as threats of violence and people got banned. I think ChapoTrapHouse got quarantined in the aftermath (Not my favourite subreddit by a long way, but still…)
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Reddit was basically founded as the tech start up designed to disrupt the 4chan industry, so the distancing from the reality of what he has wrought is kinda nuts.
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