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...but I like this post: The Right To Fuck Up; there's some good discussion going on in the comments, too. (At least at the moment - you all know what the internet is like).
I especially liked the comment with this:
"What if our politics didn’t come out as “I should be anti-racist because that’s the right thing to do” or “I should be anti-racist because I’m an anti-racist activist”; but instead “I should be anti-racist because I love you and when I’m racist it hurts you”? Would that make things any different?"
It made things click a bit, for me. They used 'racist' in the example, but it works for 'sexist'*, 'homophobic', 'disableist', 'transphobic' and others - even things which don't really have 'official' names in social justice discourse. When you get past all the theory and definitions and logic puzzles, we really just want the world to suck less, am I right? We want for society to look after everyone, not just straight Christian cis-men with money. We want for there to be less pointless chafe that makes the lives of the oppressed harder with no real gain.
I mean, some enforcement of the kyriarchy is done by cruel people who just want to feel superior to someone. The majority of the time, though, it's 'that's how things work, right?' and 'I can't be arsed to consider that other people have a different view of the world - or even themselves - than I do, and I can't be wrong', and 'But I don't want to be the oppressed one!'
Laziness, fear, and a lack of compassion. Is there any reason why the world can't be different?
*(actually, this is a rare example which works for both misogyny and misandry, because the power of the situation is, while relevent to the magnitude of the harm, not so relevent to the harm itself)
I especially liked the comment with this:
"What if our politics didn’t come out as “I should be anti-racist because that’s the right thing to do” or “I should be anti-racist because I’m an anti-racist activist”; but instead “I should be anti-racist because I love you and when I’m racist it hurts you”? Would that make things any different?"
It made things click a bit, for me. They used 'racist' in the example, but it works for 'sexist'*, 'homophobic', 'disableist', 'transphobic' and others - even things which don't really have 'official' names in social justice discourse. When you get past all the theory and definitions and logic puzzles, we really just want the world to suck less, am I right? We want for society to look after everyone, not just straight Christian cis-men with money. We want for there to be less pointless chafe that makes the lives of the oppressed harder with no real gain.
I mean, some enforcement of the kyriarchy is done by cruel people who just want to feel superior to someone. The majority of the time, though, it's 'that's how things work, right?' and 'I can't be arsed to consider that other people have a different view of the world - or even themselves - than I do, and I can't be wrong', and 'But I don't want to be the oppressed one!'
Laziness, fear, and a lack of compassion. Is there any reason why the world can't be different?
*(actually, this is a rare example which works for both misogyny and misandry, because the power of the situation is, while relevent to the magnitude of the harm, not so relevent to the harm itself)
