Friendship, Intolerance, and Social Media

[A True Kaniggit]

15 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

  But if I did say/share something dumb, I would hope that my friends would give me the initial benefit of the doubt and give me a heads up so I could be better.  I guess that’s why I distinguish between casual acquaintances and friends here?  A casual acquaintance - eh launch into the sun, or the other direction, out of the solar system (depending on mood).  A friend?  I dunno, feel like I have made an investment in that person and maybe it’s worth a conversation?  (And if you find out some stuff in the conversation that feels different).  Anyhow, will end with a plea - I prefer being warm than cold, so if I have to go, sunward would be preferred (but if you consider yourself my friend, I’d appreciate the heads up and conversation).

I suppose it depends how dumb what you said/share is.

I've cut off quite a few immediate members of my family who still think the N word is OK to use in private. Fuck those people, there is no excuse in this day and age. No discussion necessary.

[A True Kaniggit]

3 hours ago, Fury Resurrected said:

Not at all. The point is the people the comment is about are the best positioned to know what is bigotry or discrimination against them. So if those I know have expressed to me the opinion the other person expressed constitutes that, I honor the wishes of my more vulnerable friends.

On the bolded, this is one of the points I try to use to convince other white people down here to vote Democrat. In the last election 87% of black voters in the U.S. voted Democrat. While, once again, the South (the area of the country that thought owning other human beings based on skin color was such a good idea they fought a war over it) voted overwhelmingly Republican.

How is that not a huge red flag?

[Mlle. Zabzie]

9 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

I suppose it depends how dumb what you said/share is.

I've cut off quite a few immediate members of my family who still think the N word is OK to use in private. Fuck those people, there is no excuse in this day and age. No discussion necessary.

Yeah, fair enough.  I’ve pruned those people LONG ago (haven’t spoken to a first cousin since the day she dropped an anti-Asian slur into a conversation about 15 years ago.  I didn’t like her much anyhow (she is a bully among other things).

[Fury Resurrected]

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

But I thought you didn’t want to risk them seeing those comments? How can you know if they are offended by them if they didn’t see them?

Because I have already asked my trans friends how best to be an ally and support them, what things they have gone through that makes them feel uncomfortable, and how I can help. I have asked my Jewish friends about antisemitic dog whistles I might not know about. It is really not difficult if you listen to people and care about their feelings. I’m surprised you think this is such a gotcha answer. They’re my friends. I would be a shitty friend if I hadn’t already talked to them about how I can make them feel supported and safe.

[Xray the Enforcer]

48 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

 (but if you consider yourself my friend, I’d appreciate the heads up and conversation).

Hence my qualification of "most of the time." For people with whom I have close connection and trust, that's a conversation or series of conversations. 

[Fury Resurrected]

56 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

So I’m curious - I (hope/think) I share a lot of very basic and common values with a lot of you.  We don’t always agree, but I hope we agree that we are all trying to be better.  I have ABSOLUTELY said/thought/done things in my past that in retrospect were not ok, not because I meant poorly, but because I was thoughtless or coming from a place of ignorant privilege/lack of perspective.  Starting as early as a quarter of a century ago when I was in college, people were kind enough to help me try to understand differently.  I don’t always end up coming out the same door on every political issue in the world as the folks here/in my social media networks, and  I don’t post much other than pictures of my children (whether cats, plants or actual humans) and the odd Turkey in my yard.  But if I did say/share something dumb, I would hope that my friends would give me the initial benefit of the doubt and give me a heads up so I could be better.  I guess that’s why I distinguish between casual acquaintances and friends here?  A casual acquaintance - eh launch into the sun, or the other direction, out of the solar system (depending on mood).  A friend?  I dunno, feel like I have made an investment in that person and maybe it’s worth a conversation?  (And if you find out some stuff in the conversation that feels different).  Anyhow, will end with a plea - I prefer being warm than cold, so if I have to go, sunward would be preferred (but if you consider yourself my friend, I’d appreciate the heads up and conversation).

There have been exceptions where I was like woah, this totally can’t be what you mean, this can be interpreted in (blank) way- and let them clarify before launching them out of orbit. However, most of the time it was an oops on my part assuming they weren’t hateful and not an oops on their part sharing something they misinterpreted

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

57 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

So I’m curious - I (hope/think) I share a lot of very basic and common values with a lot of you.  We don’t always agree, but I hope we agree that we are all trying to be better.  I have ABSOLUTELY said/thought/done things in my past that in retrospect were not ok, not because I meant poorly, but because I was thoughtless or coming from a place of ignorant privilege/lack of perspective.  Starting as early as a quarter of a century ago when I was in college, people were kind enough to help me try to understand differently.  I don’t always end up coming out the same door on every political issue in the world as the folks here/in my social media networks, and  I don’t post much other than pictures of my children (whether cats, plants or actual humans) and the odd Turkey in my yard.  But if I did say/share something dumb, I would hope that my friends would give me the initial benefit of the doubt and give me a heads up so I could be better.  I guess that’s why I distinguish between casual acquaintances and friends here?  A casual acquaintance - eh launch into the sun, or the other direction, out of the solar system (depending on mood).  A friend?  I dunno, feel like I have made an investment in that person and maybe it’s worth a conversation?  (And if you find out some stuff in the conversation that feels different).  Anyhow, will end with a plea - I prefer being warm than cold, so if I have to go, sunward would be preferred (but if you consider yourself my friend, I’d appreciate the heads up and conversation).

This is so fundamentally important, which is why I said you should try to talk with someone before deciding how you want to react. If the person isn't that important in your life, sure, move on, but if it's a friend you like and respect, who may have said something dumb, be it due to ignorance or misguided anger, it's fundamentally important that you first try and sit down with them and explain to them why they're wrong, and that you have to know going into it that one conversation isn't going to be enough. It takes time and effort to change a person's views. I think the best example of this is white privilege. That's not a topic you can convert someone on over a 90 minute conversation. It takes time.

[Kalbear]

39 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

This is so fundamentally important, which is why I said you should try to talk with someone before deciding how you want to react. If the person isn't that important in your life, sure, move on, but if it's a friend you like and respect, who may have said something dumb, be it due to ignorance or misguided anger, it's fundamentally important that you first try and sit down with them and explain to them why they're wrong, and that you have to know going into it that one conversation isn't going to be enough. It takes time and effort to change a person's views. I think the best example of this is white privilege. That's not a topic you can convert someone on over a 90 minute conversation. It takes time.

I disagree.

This isn't saying something 'dumb'. Or saying something ignorant. This is, say, supporting LGBT hate groups. Or supporting TERFs and agreeing with them. Or being 100% on board with Alex Jones. This is less about trying to convince them to change their mind (which rarely works anyway) and giving support to people who need to be supported. 

If they want to come back to you and ask more about it, that's up to them, but you should not be required to take on the emotional labor to make them slightly less shitty human beings at the cost of your other friends' health. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

6 minutes ago, Kal Corp said:

I disagree.

This isn't saying something 'dumb'. Or saying something ignorant. This is, say, supporting LGBT hate groups. Or supporting TERFs and agreeing with them. Or being 100% on board with Alex Jones. This is less about trying to convince them to change their mind (which rarely works anyway) and giving support to people who need to be supported. 

If they want to come back to you and ask more about it, that's up to them, but you should not be required to take on the emotional labor to make them slightly less shitty human beings at the cost of your other friends' health. 

Things exist on a spectrum and you have to judge situations on a case by case basis. Let's take anti-Semitism for example, as I can speak to that personally. If someone says, "You know, Hitler was right about some things," fuck them, they're not worth your time unless you really care about them as a person (say a family member or an old friend who you can't recognize today). That's not the same as someone who uses an anti-Semitic stereotype, especially if you can tell they don't really know what they're talking about. In those instances you have to try to explain to them why what they said is wrong and hurtful and try to provide them with some reference materials to help them realize the error of their way. What they do afterwards should then dictate how you want to approach said relationship, if you want to maintain it at all.

It's deeply unfair to ask an oppressed group to explain to someone why they find their language hurtful, but you still have to try if you can. How hard you want to after they show little to no interest in learning and changing is up to the individual, and at that point I don't fault them if they decide to fire them. Out of a cannon. Into the Sun.

[Kalbear]

18 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

In those instances you have to try to explain to them why what they said is wrong and hurtful and try to provide them with some reference materials to help them realize the error of their way.

No, you don't have to do that. There is absolutely zero requirement for me to do that at all, and I resent the implication that this is somehow my responsibility in any way. 

18 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

It's deeply unfair to ask an oppressed group to explain to someone why they find their language hurtful, but you still have to try if you can.

Again, no, you don't have to do that, you don't have to try if you can, and there should be absolutely no guilt whatsoever for not doing anything of the sort. As  Ijeoma Oluo says - when someone gets angry at you and tells you you said something bad, they're doing you a favor - because they are going out of their way to inform you that you done fucked up. If they choose not to do that? That's not on them. If I choose not to do that? That's not on me. 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

16 minutes ago, Kal Corp said:

No, you don't have to do that. There is absolutely zero requirement for me to do that at all, and I resent the implication that this is somehow my responsibility in any way. 

Then who is responsible? Again, I'm not talking about hardcore, hateful people, but those who express views and opinions which seem lacking in information.

Quote

Again, no, you don't have to do that, you don't have to try if you can, and there should be absolutely no guilt whatsoever for not doing anything of the sort. As  Ijeoma Oluo says - when someone gets angry at you and tells you you said something bad, they're doing you a favor - because they are going out of their way to inform you that you done fucked up. If they choose not to do that? That's not on them. If I choose not to do that? That's not on me. 

You don't "have to," but you should try to when and where you can without doing too much harm to yourself, within reason. And you need to pick your battles given you can't win every fight, nor should you try and do so.

[kiko]

5 hours ago, Kal Corp said:

No, you don't have to do that. There is absolutely zero requirement for me to do that at all, and I resent the implication that this is somehow my responsibility in any way. 

 

I wouldn't say it is your responsibility. But based on the assumption that there is a good reason why you were (social media) friends in the first place, that person may have at least some good qualities that makes them worth the effort.

I see it more as an character test for yourself. Drop at the first offense or give a chance to adjust.

[Mentat]

The problem is... you can't really shoot people into the sun. You can unfriend them on Facebook and otherwise avoid them, sure, but they're not in the sun. They're right there. Vulnerable people (whether your friends or someone else's) are going to run into them all the time. On other people's Facebook, on the metro, at the cafe, as co-workers, on the queue to the polling booth... As a society, we all suffer and benefit from each other.

 

It's no one's responsibility to morally educate others except for, I guess, parents and teachers (maybe priests, if you're into religion), but at about 16 years old we're likely drifting away from their sphere of influence in favor of that of our peers or simply making decisions and choices for ourselves (and some people are unlucky not to have the best parents or teachers). Likely many people on this board were way ahead of me in this regard, but it took me between 10 and 15 years after my 16th birthday to achieve what I consider to be full emotional and moral maturity. It's impossible for me to overstate how much I'm in debt to people who didn't owe me fuck, but who graciously decided to dedicate some time and effort to help me grow as a human being (rather than blasting me into space). While I was the main beneficiary of these efforts, I do hope some of their kindness reflects off of me and onto others I interact with.

[Xray the Enforcer]

As far as personal responsibilities go -- I tend to operate somewhere in the middle of @Tywin et al. and @Kal Corp. I am very selective of when, where, and with whom I will engage these conversations, but I do have them. I very rarely directly engage people who are transphobic, because just existing as a trans person is to be swimming in transphobia, and thriving under those conditions is a radical act in and of itself. Cisgender folk need to do that labor. I do spend considerable energy every week addressing the low-key racism of well-meaning white people, because that's labor that needs to be done and shouldn't fall on the shoulders of my Black, brown, or Indigenous friends and colleagues. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

20 minutes ago, Xray the Enforcer said:

As far as personal responsibilities go -- I tend to operate somewhere in the middle of @Tywin et al. and @Kal Corp. I am very selective of when, where, and with whom I will engage these conversations, but I do have them. I very rarely directly engage people who are transphobic, because just existing as a trans person is to be swimming in transphobia, and thriving under those conditions is a radical act in and of itself. Cisgender folk need to do that labor. I do spend considerable energy every week addressing the low-key racism of well-meaning white people, because that's labor that needs to be done and shouldn't fall on the shoulders of my Black, brown, or Indigenous friends and colleagues. 

Can I ask what you would do with otherwise well meaning people who support LGBT rights without really considering the T in that? I have an example I want to cite, but I'd first like to hear your opinion X.

[Xray the Enforcer]

15 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Can I ask what you would do with otherwise well meaning people who support LGBT rights without really considering the T in that? I have an example I want to cite, but I'd first like to hear your opinion X.

I usually say something like "what you just said -- things don't actually work that way" and send them articles that cover the basics, written by trans journalists I know, to get them up to speed. If they still have questions, I'll send them articles that cover trans 201 topics. If they're downright transphobic, I expect one of my cisgender friends** to take on that labor because I'm not engaging with someone who rejects my basic humanity. 

**mercifully I have a few cis friends who are true allies and who will take on that labor. In no surprise to anyone with a marginalized identity, almost all of them are Black, brown, or Indigenous. Cisgender white people are embarrassingly bad at actually supporting marginalized folk.

[karaddin]

I think it also depends on my judgement of the "infringement". If Zabzie said something that I took as offensively ignorant and insensitive, but not intentionally harmful then yeah - I'm probably going to say something and give an opportunity to change, or see if someone else speaks up. With our overlap I'm pretty confident that's going to happen, but can take action myself if it doesn't.

However if someone I'd thought I was at least moderately friendly with started sharing TERF propaganda and clearly articulating their belief in transphobic conspiracy bullshit I'm just blocking.

If someone acted like they were trying to change their views in conversations on here, acted like they were friendly to me and working to be more tolerant in "public", but were privately following and liking pages whose sole purpose is spreading transphobia and reveals in conversations with others when called on this behaviour that the person you'd thought they were is a conscious persona to mislead and manipulate people... Well what's the point in talking to them then? That's not an innocent mistake, that person is not just a bigoted asshole, but someone who is happy to lie to a large group of people for an extended period of time. Even without the transphobia I'd want nothing to do with that.

So again I'd block them.

Edited to remove a joke that didn't come across in the spirit it was intended.

[Fury Resurrected]

And let us not forget to include that living in an overall transphobic environment ***kills*** trans men and women. It is exponentially more important the lessen that when possible for your trans and non-binary friends than to maintain a friendship with someone contributing to that hostile environment. When I have asked about this topic with my own trans friends, who would be exposed to the people on my friends lists, they have generally expressed that these people should be told they are wrong and sent packing. In these conversations, we always agreed that we have never seen someone change their bigoted views on trans people based on an argument on Facebook.  But, social pressure and the threat of being ostracized can stop people from at least expressing these views, which does help in a small way. So deleting people can be at least part of making bigots feel that there are possible consequences for saying bigoted shit.

In the case of antisemitism, it’s a little different. A lot of people who are referring to antisemitic conspiracy theories do not understand that agenda behind it. A great example is the Rothschild conspiracy theory bullshit. Lots of the right and alt right bring this up. However, this is referring to the notion that for centuries Jewish people have secretly controlled the world through banking. Many of the people who bring it up saw some dipshit like Alex Jones say it and didn’t investigate any further. A few of those might be reachable about unintentionally spreading hate. My Jewish friends have indicated they’d rather I try and explain this to them, so I do. If they cling to it, they’re jettisoned.

In the case of racism, you can rarely convince someone they are being racist. The knee jerk defensiveness is so strong there that it’s miraculous to overcome it.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Xray the Enforcer said:

I usually say something like "what you just said -- things don't actually work that way" and send them articles that cover the basics, written by trans journalists I know, to get them up to speed. If they still have questions, I'll send them articles that cover trans 201 topics. If they're downright transphobic, I expect one of my cisgender friends** to take on that labor because I'm not engaging with someone who rejects my basic humanity. 

**mercifully I have a few cis friends who are true allies and who will take on that labor. In no surprise to anyone with a marginalized identity, almost all of them are Black, brown, or Indigenous. Cisgender white people are embarrassingly bad at actually supporting marginalized folk.

It seems like you're more in line with my approach then. I'm not advocating for people to challenge truly hateful people, but there are a lot of well meaning folks out there who simply don't know how and why their views are wrong, and if you engage with them you may be able to persuade them into rethinking a blind spot.

So specifically on the issue of trans rights, I once had a true blind spot despite thinking I really understood the subject. I was a HS freshman in 2003 and at some point in that year I decided I supported LGBT equality, specifically when in came to same sex marriage. While at university I studied cultural and abnormal psychology on my way to getting a degree in the field, which directly exposed me to the term gender dysphoria and how painful it can be to experience this. After college I worked in liberal political organizing, which again made think I was woke long before that was a term anyone used. But I wasn't as woke as I thought. At a political event, a parade in a conservative area of the Twin Cities, we had a trans woman volunteer. She was very nice, but many feared she would elicit a negative response if she was out in front, so we hid her in the middle of a large group of people. That stuck with me for a few days, asking myself why we did that, why were we so afraid? Were we protecting her or protecting ourselves? The only conclusion I could reasonably draw is that I was here for the cause of LGB rights, but I still had a long ways to go in understanding trans rights. And that comes from the perspective of someone who should have otherwise known better.

So the point is, we shouldn't immediately dismiss well meaning people who express an ignorant opinion. Try to reason with and educate them and give them some time to learn. Their reaction afterwards is what should probably dicate if you want to keep them in your social circle, not the initial comment if you think it comes from ignorance rather than hate.

[Xray the Enforcer]

38 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

So the point is, we shouldn't immediately dismiss well meaning people who express an ignorant opinion. Try to reason with and educate them and give them some time to learn. Their reaction afterwards is what should probably dicate if you want to keep them in your social circle, not the initial comment if you think it comes from ignorance rather than hate.

That "we" is doing a lot of work, but I'll make it explicit here: "We," in my interpretation, means you, i.e. cisgender people. (And again, shoutout to my BIPOC cis friends who are staunch allies in this regard. I return the favor by calling in the white folk in my sphere and work with them to dismantle their patterns of thought that lead to racist outcomes, because BIPOC folk are exempted from that labor unless they choose to take it on.)