A conversation about conversations about bigotry

[Sifright]

Originally Posted by TDK

I read the entire thread (except for Snake's posts because jesus snake), evidently my views disagree with the majority or I'm terrible at explaining things or privileged or something.

Also, the thing about bukkake was said by Pocheros, I might have labelled it wrong?

I deleted my last post because POS was all rawr modtext, and I don't have that much stake in this conversation.

This ends my tenure in this thread for aforementioned reasons. Everyone is cordially invited to come join my new thread, which is about cats.

You are pretty privileged it's true and completely and utterly blissfully unaware..

Edit: it's more that your view is an ignorant one and you are clearly unable to get past the feeling of being offended
Basically read this wikipedia link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_privilege and understand that white priveledge is something a white person has and never has to even be aware of because that is their base line norm, for other races their base line norm in terms of respect and treatment from society is entirely different.


Edit: (This is aimed at every one) Also when communicating try not to use Idioms specific to your own culture to point out something to people. Things like digging a hole don't have the same meaning in say Portuguese or Japanese as they do in English. Idioms should not be used in discussions such as this because they do not impart ideas with any degree of clarity keeping in mind we have a global forum population.

[Red Fighter 1073]

^ Pocheros, your gif seems pretty indicative of every single person on this forum, whether they're the ones constantly judging others, the ones constantly feeling like they're being judged, or both.

But my complaint with discussion about debatable topics on this forum is the end goal of users on this forum. Is the end goal for you to just prove that you're right and they're wrong? Or is it to actually attempt to educate/change people's opinions? I would think that it's the latter or else all the Atlus, COD, [insert other controversial thread here] would seem pretty pointless. I don't know how to get into this without saying tone argument, but that's basically what I think one part of what it is.

What I'm saying is that instead of hurrying to call everyone a bigot, can we not just step back and say, "Hey, this one action of yours that just did is incredibly bigoted. Here is why. You should stop doing it." You don't need to preface with any "I don't mean to offend you and I really like you as a person and blah blah blah". But I just figure that if the end goal is for people to actually learn, then this course of action would be much more conducive to actual learning than hurrying to call them a bigot. Because more often not, that causes them to get defensive, not listen to any subsequent point you make, regardless of whether it's right or wrong. Then the whole point of calling them out is seemingly lost because they'll probably think that what they said was perfectly fine and keep on saying it. This method doesn't work with everyone, but I feel like more often than not, people are ready to jump on others for making ignorant statements rather than trying to educate them thereby perpetuating the ignorance.

[Marc v4.0]

Originally Posted by Red Fighter 1073

^ Pocheros, your gif seems pretty indicative of every single person on this forum, whether they're the ones constantly judging others, the ones constantly feeling like they're being judged, or both.

But my complaint with discussion about debatable topics on this forum is the end goal of users on this forum. Is the end goal for you to just prove that you're right and they're wrong? Or is it to actually attempt to educate/change people's opinions? I would think or at least that it's the latter or else all the Atlus, COD, [insert other controversial thread here] would seem pretty pointless. I don't know how to get into this without saying tone argument, but that's basically what I think one part of what it is.

What I'm saying is that instead of hurrying to call everyone a bigot, can we not just step back and say, "Hey, this one action of yours that just did is incredibly bigoted. Here is why. You should stop doing it." You don't need to preface with any "I don't mean to offend you and I really like you as a person and blah blah blah". But I just figure that if the end goal is for people to actually learn, then this course of action would be much more conducive to actual learning than hurrying to call them a bigot. Because more often not, that causes them to get defensive, not listen to any subsequent point you make, regardless of whether it's right or wrong. Then the whole point of calling them out is seemingly lost because they'll probably think that what they said was perfectly fine and keep on saying it. This method doesn't work with everyone, but I feel like more often than not, people are ready to jump on others for making ignorant statements rather than trying to educate them.

EDIT: Well fuck, TDK posted that and now this point's probably going to get ignored.

That is all well and good, but It has already been admitted that past actions tinted responses to those topics, and people came to those topics with hostility already primed before even having a chance to become 'offended'. The evidence is in the topics themselves, and the subsequent shitfest that has occurred here.

[Amake]

If it's too hard to be the change you want to see in the world, you can also try being as close to nothing at all as you can manage. Disappear into yourself and limit the points where you intersect with the world. I've done that for years; I do it for short periods whenever the pressure to act correctly gets too much for me. It doesn't help anyone, but you do what you have to to survive while limiting the damage you cause.

It's probably easier for most of you to be nice than it is for me, if you don't have Asperger's you should supposedly have some kind of sensitivity towards peoples' feelings where before you say something you generally can figure out if it's going to hurt them or not - for me that process takes too much time and effort to do every time I open my mouth, so I have to gamble. And when I do hurt someone's feelings I feel bad about it for days and carefully examine and attempt to modify my behavior to keep it from happening again; most of you probably have thicker skin than that.

So if I can do it, you should be able to.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Man lots of people are dropping the "Why won't you educate me" bomb which is pretty bullshit. We're all here to have fun untzuntz times without encountering hatred and bigotry and none of us want to have to go through and lecture everybody and dig up all the shit.
Information is out there, just go look it up.

Or here is a sweet metric- if you disagree with Smarty you are a bigot in some way shape or fashion. It is up to you to figure out how but on request I will confirm whether you have correctly identified your crippling fuckness because that's how good a person I am.

[Premmy]

Originally Posted by Terex4

The fact of the matter is, this shit hurts, oftentimes deeply. In the Atlus thread, the common argument was "present more evidence." To understand at that moment that the fact people like myself being portrayed as tricksters and deviants was not enough. To know that the shit I deal with everyday wasn't significant enough to warrant so much as a second thought, much less support, really lets a person know their place in the world.

I'm not even going to pretend to speak for others who were impacted by the lack of support, not in the boycott, but in their social issues or walked away with a different message entirely. I speak for myself and myself alone.

GodDAMN........ this post, Just.........damn.

This is pretty much it.

I've never actually been personally "offended" by racist shit. Or shit against people with mental differences or anti-atheist shit. I'm a grown-ass man and "Fuck that, and Fuck you" is pretty much my life.

The fact that the entire discussion has been buzzworded into revolving around the concept of "offense" instead of about "not being the drop of pisswater in the flood that drowns people in oppression" drives me nuts.

When it comes to emotional responses? when it comes down to how I feel? Ultimately what has always hurt me most is not what's said. It's the mental trip I go through. I Hear or see some racist shit. I hear some crazy fundamentalist religious shit. Hell, If someone tries to give me a tract or some shit and I just want to politely decline, My first knee-jerk reaction is to speak up. Defend myself. Defend the type of people I am Say anything.

And then I stop.
I think.

I Open my mouth and Every Know-it-all white boy. Every old black lady. Every Dick Nerd or DoucheBro and Any Brown or Female or Gay friends they have who just agree with all the bullshit they say. All of these mother fuckers within a five mile radius are going to descend on me and do everything in their power and use every word they Can to call me an overreacting faggot devil worshiping crazy nigger. Worst part is none of them will use those exact words. All of them will strain the limits of deniability. So I can't even say anything. I can't even do anything.
Now I'm surrounded by enemies. Now the world is very small and cold and dark.

It's not the stupid bullshit people say. I can punch back. It's how very fucking ALONE it makes me feel.

[Amake]

We're all together in feeling alone at least.

Let me share with you a revelation I just had since we're on the topic of words that hurt.

Whenever you make a generalization you're alienating someone who doesn't fit in with your generalization; you make someone into a voiceless, invisible, less important individual. This hurts me personally, because I always have and always will be the one left out; I have in fact been excluded from every single group I've ever dreamed of being a part of. There's always an exception to the rule who makes your judgment inaccurate, and by diminishing their individuality you hurt both them and yourself.

Now, this isn't me trying to act like I'm a hated or feared minority whose troubles are comparable to Premmy's. I'm not; I'm only ignored. It's a matter of recognizing prejudice, and I think it begins with generalization.

This post was made possible by the continuing Sifright-Amake collaboration.

[shiney]

I don't know about the rest of you guys, especially after reading this, but after taking a step back I'm pretty ashamed of the way I handled a lot of this. Not from a mod aspect as much as from a personal aspect, and letting my history with Liz (which is tainted by being personally informed of every single incident when a post was reported by or about Liz) color my view. When you are consistently exposed to the negative aspects of a person you tend to insulate yourself against their arguments or viewpoints and allow this to color your view of them as a person and a human.

Liz on this forum was a catalyst which helped bring out the best and worst in a lot of members. Liz by and of herself did not too terribly often actually say particularly objectionable things insofar as the initial arguments made were pretty reasonable. Her approach is not my approach, and I stifled sometimes at feeling I was being told to care about something the way others cared about it as to me that is an encroachment on my persona. Others reacted more strongly or harshly. This polarized factions as pro and against an argument, even if the crux of the issue was most people agree. People get defensive, and would rather continue the argument for no reason other than to defend and/or explain their position long after the fact has been established that nobody actually disagrees about the content. In almost every instance it seems to me the argument was about the delivery of this information, and oftentimes about people's refusal to take the slightest responsibility for educating themselves.

Many times Liz should have stepped back and brought up the issue again at a later time. But it is not Liz's sole responsibility or fault that these viewpoints about her were created, when many many times a member in disagreement with her could have put their differences aside and done as Krylo suggested, taken 15 or 30 minutes to look at what they actually disagreed with and reviewed or researched the subject matter.

As I said though, Liz was a catalyst. She brought these things up, she lit the fire which often burned out of control. People don't like to be challenged, and her entire existence challenges societal norms (which should not be the case as it is without question a case of exclusion because people "doooon't understaaaand" but for the sake of argument, we can all agree that right now, societally speaking, someone like Liz is not accepted into the mainstream). In questing for acceptance or at the very least tolerance and understanding Liz stepped on a lot of people and burned some bridges. This was maybe not the best approach in this forum, but I understand not only the tactic but the feeling behind the tactic. For example: my sister was struck by a car when she was 2. She is extremely developmentally disabled, and cannot even use the restroom without help, prepare food for herself or even walk. When I was a child, children with mental disabilities were all placed in "retard schools" where they would basically be in day care all day and were not given a chance at an education. This was society, this was the norm in Minnesota. My mother brought the fight into the limelight and challenged the view that this is ana cceptable practice, burned bridges, made people uncomfortable, made enemies, colored perception and people's opinions of her, ended up at the State Capitol on the news and testifying, fighting and advocating for nothing other than tolerance and acceptance.

Schools in Minnesota were shortly thereafter required to develop special education programs for children with disabilities. My mom brought the fight to the state and forced them to change and accept people that were weird and that nobody understood. Now just about every school has someone mentally handicapped, and in most cases you may find when you get to know this person, they are a wonderful person, a lighthearted spirit or just a gentle reminder that you can find friendship in unlikely places.

Liz's approach has not been altogether too different from my mother's, except that it involves sexual or gender orientation as opposed to mental handicaps. But the end goal is the same. Tolerance, acceptance, understanding, and a generational shift away from going "oogy, one of the weirdo people" to "hey, Liz." To a point where she doesn't have to fight and argue and blame and get pissed off when people say give me more and get pissed off when people say give me more and get pissed off when people say give me more.

I think it's firmly established that I don't necessarily care for Liz because her method of delivery upsets me as it causes a lot of problems on this forum, many of which have resulted in many people leaving - people both in agreement with her and disgusted with the response, and people opposed to her and disgusted with the response. I take it as a personal failure in not being able to navigate the situations from a position of leadership that strikes a balance between "This is a worthy cause and you need to respect it" and "You need to ease up on your advocacy because you are alienating potential supporters". I usually came down harder on the person I viewed as instigating the situation (Liz would start the topics or arguments and thus became the focus of my ire) than I did at the people who were stating their opinions (making the situation worse by steadfastly refusing to budge in the face of overwhelming evidence because of past interactions).

I stepped back and started reading. And came to the realization, from a personal sense, of the parallel drawn between my mom and Liz. It was humbling and as stated at the start of this SnakePost; I was ashamed of my own behavior.

I can only hope that many of you start to realize the same thing. Liz may or may not ever come back here, voluntarily or involuntarily. I recused myself from that decision by kind of selfishly thrusting the mantle of leadership on synk and the other mods. fifth, poch, Marc, Terex, Pip, TDK, Kickface may or may not ever come back here, voluntarily or involuntarily, because of these kind of interactions that have taken place over the past several years. It's not my choice and I don't have a clue what will happen, I only know that I, like Liz, just want what I always did; a place where people can gather and enjoy each other's company, in acceptance and tolerance, without needing to fight over ridiculous societal expectations.

I'm sorry everyone, and I'm sorry, Liz.

[Magus]

Hear hear.

[phil_]

That's horrifying, Prem.