So this has been a long time coming, though I've been trying to get the right words for it.
Back in February 4th, a topic was made calling out a post of mine from back on January 11th. It had called me out for comparing furry discrimination with the discrimination against LGBTQ+ folks as well as the discrimination of Muslims since 9/11. The original post in this topic itself was pretty heated, and was followed by agreement, some statements from Moot, and overall more heatedness. I had waited to post because I was feeling very defensive in feeling that my intentions were being entirely misconstrued into something that I had never said...and that ended up being my mindset when I responded.
Though I had mentioned some time later in the server that had I been approached calmly about this I would have responded differently, that was both neither the point nor was it even a viable option given the past history of the Ops in our Discord server when it came to people raising legitimate concerns, only for those concerns to be dismissed due to the intent mattering more. The point in the end was that my wording was not the greatest and could have easily been taken the wrong way, and was taken as such. The point was that because of my word choice, my post was taken as equally comparing two very major problems in our society with a
very much lesser though still problematic bullying of another group. In other words even if the intention was an innocent one, the wording was still very problematic and careless and changed the context to one that could easily be seen as insensitive towards the mentioned communities.
So I'd like to take a moment to apologize for what I've said both in a statement, and I'd also like to hopefully reach out directly in DMs as well to apologize directly if folks would be open to that.
@Svipjoth: I'm deeply sorry for completely dismissing the crux of why you and others were upset in the first place. One thing I need to always remind myself of is the old saying "the road to hell is paved with good intentions," since even the best intentions can lead to the most damaging of results. Even if my post was intended to be a harmless comparison of negative group generalizations, the result because of my wording was that it was seen as a direct comparison of the communities and their struggles and suggesting that Furry discrimination was on an equal level, which absolutely was a careless move on my part that I should have immediately reworded and apologized for. In no way is it on an equal level, and I'm really sorry that I stupidly worded it to even suggest that. And likewise I'm really sorry that I continually dismissed what you were saying because I was more concerned with defending the intention versus the result.
@trader: That argument we had in the moderation chat should have never went down the way it did. When talks of race came up, I was confused and already defensive because of the topic that had came up, and that translated incredibly poorly in our debate. I should have realized early on that there was a deeper argument there that I was completely missing, especially when it should have been incredibly obvious that it was getting to a far more personal level. But like a stubborn dumbass, I completely neglected that obvious note and kept going even when it continued to spiral down that route. I should have taken time to collect myself and my thoughts and actually view the conversation versus trying to just stubbornly argue my point, but instead I know I just exacerbated feelings even worse with the route I took and possibly hurt and offended you with what was said, and I'm really sorry about that.
I'd also like to apologize to everyone who was offended by what I had wrote in that post or who was upset by how I was during this whole affair, and have since edited the post to something that hopefully conveys what I had meant in a better fashion (if not, please let me know how I can word it better). This should have been something I had done at the start, and I regret that I neither did so nor tried to understand where folks were coming from in their concerns.
I've also made it known in our Regional Stability Squad chat, but I'll be stepping away from being an OP once we can get a viable group of folks together to fill up the spots. Looking back at both past events including this, and my more recent handling of events such as with Alien Zombie, it's abundantly clear that I've long since passed my time in being in such a role, and it's time that I step away and let some better equipped, more impartial and level headed types take over.
But I'm not asking for forgiveness on this, nor do I expect it. I said stupid things, defended saying stupid things because of the intention behind it, and only offended and hurt people in the process. All I want is to genuinely apologize for the sheer stupidity of myself that led to folks leaving the region as a result, and to say that I'm sorry that it got to the point that people left the region because they rightly felt as if their concerns were being invalidated and ignored.
