> I, as a brown immigrant, get to criticize my home country all I want.

Countries are not people, so criticism of a country cannot be racist (it's a category error).

Criticism of people of a country could be racist, but that's a different thing.

Criticism of the government/establishment of a country could be racist, but again that's a different thing.

Unfortunately these three separate things often get conflated and mixed up.

> countries are not people, so criticism of a country cannot be racist

Then how do you explain those reactions? [1] "I'm sorry, but there's no other word one can use but racist".

GP is totally right, nowadays any remote criticism -- and I'm speaking of the factual ones, not the injurious kind mentioned before -- of a foreign country (except China, Russia and NK for some reason) by white people is labeled racist. And of course, people of color are allowed to speak anything they want against European countries, and spread hate speech mostly without any issue (granted one rapper is condamned from time to time... for instance Nick Conrad after singing "hang the whites" [2]).

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/12/politics/trump-shithole-c...

[2] https://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/ces-rappeurs-qui-defr...

A bit of context,

> "I'm sorry, but there's no other word one can use but racist," Colville said, responding to reporters at a news conference in Geneva, Switzerland. "You cannot dismiss entire countries and continents as 'shitholes' whose entire populations, who are not white, are therefore not welcome."

You missed that second part.

Looks like they’re talking about dismissing the people of those countries just because they are from, what they consider, a ‘shithole’ country/continent.

I did not specify who was conflating/mixing-up these distinct topics, or for what purpose. Racists often conflate countries/governments/populations, which is what Trump did with his "shithole countries" comments. He was referring to the people of those countries, i.e. the pool which immigrants would be members of (or, in his delusional mind, "sent by").

Note that if a country itself were a 'shithole', say for example a war-torn region like Yemen or Syria, that would only help the case for immigrants from that country; since the place they're fleeing is so bad.

> GP is totally right, nowadays any remote criticism -- and I'm speaking of the factual ones, not the injurious kind mentioned before -- of a foreign country (except China, Russia and NK for some reason) by white people is labeled racist.

Citations and examples please (also for the China/Russia/NK criticism; I suspect you're also conflating criticism-of-government/people with criticism-of-country)

> And of course, people of color are allowed to speak anything they want against European countries

What complete and utter total bollocks. Have you never encountered the thought-terminating cliche of "if you don't like it then leave", or its more overtly-racist cousin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_back_to_where_you_came_from ?

> and spread hate speech mostly without any issue

I find this use of the word "mostly" to be mostly questionable.

> Countries are not people, so criticism of a country cannot be racist (it's a category error).

Technically true, but practically useless. What is a country other than a group of people? Almost all criticism of a country will inevitably be about people in it or their actions - with very few exceptions (ex. complaints about the geography, weather, etc).

It’s far from useless and even a cursory review will find many examples of criticism which says things about the people of a country being mislead, poorly served, etc. which is different from racist claims that they are innately disposed to be that way. The key part is acknowledging the fundamental humanity of the people you’re talking about – they may make choices we dislike but that’s a decision, not genetics.

For example, I grew up in California and heard a lot about Mexico’s problems — some people would repeat racist claims about Mexicans being lazy (despite them universally hiring undocumented workers for cheap labor) or dishonest, but others would correctly identify problems like corruption being due to things like the huge amounts of money from the U.S. drug trade ensuring that cartels regularly killed off non-corrupt officials, where the system didn’t work well for most people who didn’t have a choice and everyone involved having acting on the options available to them rather than some innate determinism or moral weakness.

> What is a country other than a group of people?

Which group of people? The population? The government? These can be very different (just ask Myanmar)

This is a straw man, legitimate criticism isn't racist and no one says it is.

If your idea of criticism is something like using a slur or stereotypes to make an argument then it is not politically correct.

What's the criticism you want to give but feel like you can't?

> legitimate criticism isn't racist and no one says it is

Free speech means freedom to express “illegitimate” views, “the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it may be considered”. No one has reached a universal agreement on what “legitimate” criticism is. Of course there are often prevailing societal opinions, but those change with the society. Eg. the Federalist Papers were largely written by someone who was literally labeled “illegitimate” by society at his time (and were full of slurs, stereotypes, etc.¹). Someone who got killed in a duel — the meaning of civility changes with the civilization. IMO ours is at a fairly high point at the moment (in part because of the value placed on tolerance for differing values), but it’s only a matter of time before it inevitably collapses much like the Greek and Roman ones before it (likely in part because of intolerance for free expression).

¹Eg. stereotyping the Republics of Greece and Italy as “petty” and slurring opponents as “advocates of despotism”. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Federalist_(Dawson)/9

White people are allowed to criticize the country in the exact same way here too. That’s not the type of stuff we are talking about.

You raise a point that seems to come up increasingly frequently, and it's a good one because it highlights some complexities in the issues.

I don't think you're entirely wrong, but I don't believe you're entirely "correct" either :)

Some brown people can be racist, including towards other brown people, and including those of the same heritage. (I'm not saying that you are.)

Some subset of comments by racists may be categorically true. For example, a racist might decry the appalling rapes and murders that have been reported from India, saying violence towards women in India is a serious and pressing issue.

Isolated statements don't necessarily reveal motivations or underpinning beliefs. A blog post might report "truth", but that might be selective, framed and phrased in certain ways, and so on. So a hosting service necessarily needs to make a judgement call regarding acceptable content, and sometimes this will require looking beyond the content itself to discern motivations.

The motivations of a writer or broadcaster are key. If someone is writing about corruption and endemic violence in a foreign land, why are they doing this? Is it to call attention to the issue so it might be addressed and fixed? Or is it to build a wall?

For what it's worth, I doubt NFS would ban you from writing about the issues you've raised, provided they were constructive. Yes, that's a judgement call, and I think that's inevitable.

The issue of white allies (or cis-gendered, or whatever other area is concerned) is tricky, and frankly I think society is going through adolescence with this. Lots of outrage, lots of polarisation, and this is a shame and unhelpful. I agree that rejection of your allies by authorities that haven't attempted to understand the details is actively undermining, even if it's done with apparently good intentions. Personally, I think this sort of thing happens through fear of attracting outrage, misunderstanding the problem, wanting a simple answer to complex problems, pressure to act quickly and show decisiveness, and so on. Unfortunately this stuff is complicated and complex, and requires care and attention.

Personally I feel that the underpinning issues here are driven by polarisation, and this is what needs to addressed. Anyone who's writing to encourage collaborative solutions to grievous problems is unlikely to be banned by any hosting provider worth its salt. The sort of provider banning such content isn't contributing to a happier world, so should be avoided.