Downvotes aren’t how you address racists and bigots. Banning them is.

Downvoting is a tool that racists and bigots use when they’re trying to avoid getting banned though. On top of that, most targetted groups are minorities, which by definition, have small numbers. All off which means that the impact of downvotes hits vulnerable minorities harder than it hits bigots.

To you, this is some sort of hypothetical ideal that you’d like to see. In your mind, if things “worked the way they should”, downvoting would be a useful tool. But things don’t work the way the should. They work they way they are used, and in this case, that means they often hurt vulnerable groups more than they help them, despite how it ‘should be”