Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2012-03-06 06:53 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2012-03-06 06:53 pm
[ SECRET POST #1890 ]
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 05 pages, 108 secrets from Secret Submission Post #270.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 - repeats ]
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments and concerns should go here.
no subject
I think the special terminology is good in that it gives people the words to talk about things that previously may have been hard to give voice to. But it can also be a sign of cliquishness, especially when the blacklisted words seem to change every month. It can be very challenging for someone whose first language is not English, for someone who is autistic or for whatever other reason has a lot of difficulty picking up on those kinds of "invisible cues," or even pretty much anyone who is made to feel like an outsider to that clique.
I also think that it can devolve into bullying. There's nothing wrong with telling off people who say offensive things. But I think that a lot of marginalized people have been repressing their anger--especially about their marginalization--and been silenced for a long time, which is a really bad thing. And they're rediscovering their power, which is a really good thing. But sometimes the feeling of being in a pack, of getting to be angry, can just feel so good that it becomes about that rather than about actually being offended. This is not to invoke the "You just like being offended!" trope. I don't think people reacting in anger to offensive things just like being offended. But when people start joining wank comms, looking for excuses to be angry, living for the wank and looking for ways to misinterpret people rather than actually listening to what they're saying...yeah.
For reference, when I was fifteen, two police officers removed me from my home and handcuffed me in stress positions for hours while laughing at and mocking me. I pleaded with them, saying, "This isn't right!" One of the cops was white and the other was black, and I am white. They deliberately chose to mishear what I said as "This isn't white" and accused me of racism. I have no idea why they did this ("this isn't white" doesn't make contextual grammatical sense, ffs) but apparently it was just a way to fuck with me and make me the bad guy. And maybe make it seem like I deserved what they were doing to me? (My crime, for the record, was truancy, and what they did was illegal on several counts. They were never reprimanded for it.)
An encounter with social justice activists shouldn't leave me feeling like those cops did when they deliberately misheard me, but sometimes they do. I don't mind being called out when I'm honestly just missing some unfortunate implication, but willfully reading things I didn't say into my words just so they can have the pleasure of bullying me leaves me feeling pretty awful. I've said offensive things in the past. I've never once said that rape only happens to asexuals. But I've had people tell me I've said this. Considering this is an absurd statement I could never even imagine myself thinking (or anyone, ever thinking), I feel almost like I've had a gun planted on me.
And then there is their habit of splitting things into very black-and-white terms. A person who says some good things is a "flawless individual," but let that same person make one misstep, and they're irredeemably stained. This goes beyond calling out--their entire character as a person is defined by that error, that flaw, regardless of all the good they may have done. I mean I get that if the "flaw" is something huge like murdering people, but in most cases it seems like an inability to see human beings as complex and nuanced, who may have some good features and some bad ones. Everything becomes defined in absolutes. Of course, not everyone does this in every situation! There is no SJ hive mind. I've just noted that it's a direction the ideology seems prone to.
All that said...