User:SOTO/Forum Archive/Help!/@comment-43874324-20200702151414/@comment-5918438-20200823170848

To be clear, a page entitled Racism warns its readers of what to expect. A page that starts with a slur is harmful from the start (potentially without warning, as with Special:Randompage). And as we've said before, there is a difference between describing and depicting.

Describing allows an editor to frame the information in the best way possible, and allows them to organise the page in such a way that a decent amount of context comes before examples.

Insisting on taking direct quotes from hateful characters (whose writers are all too eager for the chance to use slurs so long as it's being "condemned"), or allowing the oppressive narrative to take control of what info is gained from a single article, is just not the right way about it. This can justifiably make many of our readers feel unsafe, and, by normalising it (through coverage without context), even contribute to the culture of oppression.

It is always a good policy to defer to those with lived experience on matters which concern them. That means making changes when someone on the talk page brings up an issue that had been overlooked, and even in the text, trying to always put the POV of characters of colour first. But it should also mean taking the readers themselves into consideration.