thegreenmeridian:fierceawakening: red–thedragon: earlgraytay:derharlekin:This is just as relevant fo
thegreenmeridian:fierceawakening: red–thedragon: earlgraytay:derharlekin:This is just as relevant for tumblr as for twitter, so I share it here.Fully agree ….not to derail, but holy shit, this is why “social skills training” rarely worksbecause it’s trying to take a series of insights (many of which aren’t universally applicable, are not helpful, or are more useful to Keep The Autistic Kid Shut Up than to help you make friends)and turn them into clearcut rules Thank you for the insight a[id: a tweet thread by twitter user ‘Katherine Cross’ @ Quinnae_MoonIt begins with a qrt of a tweet by twitter user ‘penitent admirer’ @ loudpenitent“A disturbing amount of Online Discourse these days from the Puriteens et al is entirely a desperate attempt to make the world ‘safe’ by giving you a set of cheat codes about how to Purge The Evil From Our Midst. It’s nega-pickup artist logic, social interaction as a ruleset.”Katherine Cross said in response: “In my many discussions on activism down the years, I’ve said that one of the most dangerous things we tend to do is treat *insights* as rules. Things like the ‘tone argument,’ for instance, or ‘intent doesn’t matter.’It’s insightful to note that marginalized people are more likely to have their tone policed, or used as an excuse not to hear them. it does not mean that one’s tone can never be a problem under any circumstances whatsoever.Similarly, it’s insightful to note that whatever your intentions, any harm you caused remains. It does not mean that we should always conflate open hostility with simple accidents or ignorance. By calcifying such insights into inflexible rules, we gamify activism by making it a ‘winnable’ sequence of inputs. To no one’s surprise, this is part of why social justice communities are vulnerable to exploitation by bad actors. It’s very easy to *say* the right things.So easy to *say* what’s right, and perform everything to a tee. And since that’s where all the emphasis is, in viewing oppression as evidenced by social faux pas, it allows truly abusive and toxic people to pantomime their way past scrutiny for months or years. Meanwhile, it is precisely this sort of academic perfection that is most elusive for the marginalized- we who were raised in a world where compromise was a way of life.That means that, in a world where ‘context’ can only ever be a bad faith excuse to escape accountability, you are left with little recourse to defend yourself if you run afoul of an unwritten rule. And this means those of us, like trans women of color, are often excluded from the spaces notionally advocating for us. Too messy, not up on the latest language, not living our politics perfectly enough.And I want to stress something here. I’ve been beating this drum since at least 2012. It’s not an issue among ‘teens,’ though it certainly affect those youngest and newest to activism most acutely. It’s something elders do too. My generation does it. We *all* do.Consider the structure of every online callout:‘What do we want!?’‘Accountability!’‘What does that mean!?’*variously confused muttering*^ this is where the rules leave us time after time. And while I don’t hold much hope these days, we can still make different choices.”end id] Absolutely. When we say “intent doesn’t matter” meaning “that was hurtful, actually, please don’t do it again” that’s one thing. When we say it meaning “we will never consider what you meant” that’s just an excuse for bullying.“I’m not sure I can say this quietly, please hear my message and not my irritation” is one thing. “I get to call your group inherently bad and you HAVE to sit there and listen to it” is another,. Yeah. If I get hit by a car, I’m injured regardless of why that happened. But I don’t want an old woman who fell asleep at the wheel receiving the exact same consequences as someone who deliberately run me down. -- source link