Race Topics: Should we try allowing them again?

HI All, 

I know there's been a recent discussion about re-allowing race topics back here in CC, since the current rules mean that issues primarily affecting POC are hidden end up effectively being erased from one of the most active groups in the Community. 

That's clearly an issue. So I thought I'd open it up to the Community to discuss the best way to move forward. 

A couple of points:

- Help us find solutions! Make suggestions, or just talk about what you'd like to see.

- Please assume that the admins are doing their best. Policy related suggestions are really helpful (like "allow this, but not that")! Since this is about doing what we can with what we've got, "just work harder" or "hire more admins" aren't really going to help us come up with an answer to the question of how to handle these types of posts. I would love to have someone whose mission it was to monitor CC constantly and do nothing else, but that's not in the cards at the moment. 

A few other things: 

-CC is one of the more active and visible groups in the Community. There are constantly new people coming in, the majority of whom are white and that means likely 101 topics and comments are inevitable. Many of them may be innocent and coming from a place of ignorance not malice, but I know that doesn't make them any less abrasive. (And it certainly gives a degree of cover to the malicious versions.) That's part of the reason we started moving all those discussions- so that POC could have the choice to opt into those conversations if they were willing, but not constantly have those discussions in their face otherwise. 

- One of the ways of talking about CC we hit on a while ago is "CC is a place to debate ideas, not people." One of the challenges we face in trying to think of ways to adjust the rules about race topics is finding a way to define that. It's pretty straightforward in the abstract, but a little harder to define in the specific. What kind of topics are OK? What kind aren't? How can we define them in a clear-cut way? This serves two purposes: it helps users know what is and isn't okay, and it helps admins moderate consistently. 

- I am open to creative ideas. For example: a post that an admin could enable/disable when they were around to moderate it closely, with discussions taking place in the comments. 

- We can try different things and see what works. 

ETA: Thanks you guys. You've given us a lot to think about. We'll have an update for you soon.