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i wrote a thing
May. 3rd, 2013 09:37 amThat thing is a rant about social justice on tumblr. And I thought about posting on tumblr, but then I realized I didn't want to deal with the very people I'm talking about in my rant. But I wrote it because I needed to get it out of my system, and so I'm going to post it here instead.
So there’s been talk again on my dash criticizing the specific kind of over-the-top social justice warrior-ing going on on tumblr, and I think this is a good conversation to have. My biggest problem with it is that it doesn’t leave any room for actual humanity—be that either mistakes or the fact that different people have different levels of education/access to educational resources.
The expectation seems to be that people will be 100% perfect in their social justice-ing all the time. And meanwhile the ott warriors are just circling below like sharks waiting for someone to slip up JUST ONCE so they can attack. You see this a lot with celebs: every single time a celebrity comes to the attention of tumblr culture, it’s like a competition to see who can find the thing to discredit them the fastest. And I have zero problem with people calling out behavior that is problematic. I do have a problem with the glee with which tumblr does it and the way they smash it in the faces of the ones who like that celeb. It’s not like all people who like a given famous person are the kind of fans who refuse to admit that oppar could possibly do anything wrong. There are fans like that, of course, and there’s no exucse for them, but there are also loads of people who like the work of a given person or who are fond of their face or just think they’d be cool to hang out with and who will readily admit that that person has done things that are NOT OKAY. But they still like that person (for whatever value of ‘like’ applies) and there’s no need to make those ‘fans’ feel terrible about themselves for still enjoying that person/their art. I’ll use a personal example: I like Amy Poehler a lot. I love Parks and Rec and I like her as a person and I think the way she wants to encourage young women and girls is inspirational. I also think that time she posed in a ‘Native American’ headband with the feather was gross and wrong. And there are other things she’s done that are not okay. But I still like her. AND I admit that she’s done things that aren’t okay. I can do both. And face it: if we stopped liking everyone who ever said anything problematic, there would be no one left to like. No one is a paragon of social justice. No one. Everyone slips up, everyone does and says stupid and offensive things, everyone has blindspots. The key is whether you admit to that and try to do better. And since most celebs aren’t called out on those things…we don’t know whether they’d admit, apologize and try to learn. We just don’t know. [Note: there’s a big difference between someone saying or doing something thoughtlessly offensive and someone, say, unrepentantly beating someone they claim to love. I am not conflating the two, so don’t think I am.]
And so the celebrity thing is exhausting. But celebs are a distance from us, and they have a huge amount of privilege to protect them, and so the tumblr attitude towards them is not nearly as bad as when I see this level of self-righteous zealousness leveled at other tumblr users. Honestly, as someone who comes from a very conservative religious background, it reminds me of nothing so much as those people in religious groups who seem to LOVE it when other people ‘sin’ and who lurk around waiting to find out that other people have messed up and then jump on them and badmouth them to everyone and basically just act like the exact opposite of how the tennants of their faith call them to act.
So many people forget that tumblr is full of really young people. I mean, I’m a dinosaur in my mid-twenties, and I’m in a constant process of educating myself. But when I was the age of the majority of tumblr, I knew NOTHING about systemic oppression. Nothing. I grew up in a very sheltered evangelical environment where I was taught to treat everyone with respect and kindness and politeness and that that would pretty much keep me from doing anything wrong. I was never, ever taught about systemic injustice. I didn’t know it existed. Yes, I was one of those ‘stupid’ people who thought that, say, racism was about actively hating/being cruel to people of a different race than you, and since I would never dream of doing that, I couldn’t possibly do anything racist. It was only when I got to college and started reading more widely on the internet that I discovered this whole new world of ideas about how the world was set up. That’s how I discovered feminism and the need for it, the idea of systemic oppression and the patriarchy/kyriarchy and heiarchies in general. Up until then I knew nothing. And I think of what would have happened to me personally if I’d said something unintentionally offensive/hurtful when I was that age and people ripped into me. It would have crushed me. It would have. And I realize that’s nothing compared to the constant grinding under the heel that people who are oppressed go through every day—but God, I used to think feminism was a bad thing! I did! Now it’s as necessary to me as oxygen, but I would have been turned off to it completely if I had felt attacked using it, despite how desperately I needed it…because I didn’t know that I needed it.
I think it’s good to call people out on problematic things they say. I really do. And I think anger is powerful and necessary. But I think that sometimes that anger should be at the system or at people in power who perpetuate oppression, not at some kid who’s probably got no clue what they said was wrong because they’ve been brainwashed by the culture they live in not to see the oppression around them. I’m not saying people need to pander to offensive people, especially when they’re privileged. But there’s a big difference between a matter-of-fact, “Hey, you screwed up big-time here”/“hey, that think you said really, really hurt me”/“hey, you seem to have some ideas about people who are different than you that are very incorrect” and someone’s inbox being flooded with insults. I realize this skates perilously close to the tone argument, and I want to emphasize that I’m not telling people they can’t be angry about things. BE ANGRY. But maybe don’t unleash the fullness of your anger on someone who maybe has no idea what they’re doing is wrong. Rant and rave and scream on your own blog about it. Talk about how it represents just one more terrible thing you have to deal with day in and day out and how sometimes you think you’re going to explode from trying to carry all of that around. But before you contact the person who said or did whatever pissed you off, take a moment to think: is this something that shows real malice or is this something that perhaps signals that this person is just really ignorant? It’s hard to tell sometimes, but I do think we should take the time to think about it. You don’t have the responsibility to educate anyone. But if you do decide to contact them, I think it’s a good thing to take their possible situation into account. Intent doesn’t lessen the pain or anger that person stirred in you. But intent can give us some idea of whether that person could be brought around to enlightenment. Don’t we want everyone to come around to our team? Isn’t that the goal?
People can be eduated. Even deeply, deeply ignorant people. I’m living proof of that. But it probably wouldn’t have happened if I’d been a very young, very vulnerable, and very sheltered girl who felt overwhelmed by people older, more educated, and more articulate than I was telling me what a terrible person I was. That would have triggered my anxiety on a profound level. I know it would have. I just want people to be careful with each other.
So there’s been talk again on my dash criticizing the specific kind of over-the-top social justice warrior-ing going on on tumblr, and I think this is a good conversation to have. My biggest problem with it is that it doesn’t leave any room for actual humanity—be that either mistakes or the fact that different people have different levels of education/access to educational resources.
The expectation seems to be that people will be 100% perfect in their social justice-ing all the time. And meanwhile the ott warriors are just circling below like sharks waiting for someone to slip up JUST ONCE so they can attack. You see this a lot with celebs: every single time a celebrity comes to the attention of tumblr culture, it’s like a competition to see who can find the thing to discredit them the fastest. And I have zero problem with people calling out behavior that is problematic. I do have a problem with the glee with which tumblr does it and the way they smash it in the faces of the ones who like that celeb. It’s not like all people who like a given famous person are the kind of fans who refuse to admit that oppar could possibly do anything wrong. There are fans like that, of course, and there’s no exucse for them, but there are also loads of people who like the work of a given person or who are fond of their face or just think they’d be cool to hang out with and who will readily admit that that person has done things that are NOT OKAY. But they still like that person (for whatever value of ‘like’ applies) and there’s no need to make those ‘fans’ feel terrible about themselves for still enjoying that person/their art. I’ll use a personal example: I like Amy Poehler a lot. I love Parks and Rec and I like her as a person and I think the way she wants to encourage young women and girls is inspirational. I also think that time she posed in a ‘Native American’ headband with the feather was gross and wrong. And there are other things she’s done that are not okay. But I still like her. AND I admit that she’s done things that aren’t okay. I can do both. And face it: if we stopped liking everyone who ever said anything problematic, there would be no one left to like. No one is a paragon of social justice. No one. Everyone slips up, everyone does and says stupid and offensive things, everyone has blindspots. The key is whether you admit to that and try to do better. And since most celebs aren’t called out on those things…we don’t know whether they’d admit, apologize and try to learn. We just don’t know. [Note: there’s a big difference between someone saying or doing something thoughtlessly offensive and someone, say, unrepentantly beating someone they claim to love. I am not conflating the two, so don’t think I am.]
And so the celebrity thing is exhausting. But celebs are a distance from us, and they have a huge amount of privilege to protect them, and so the tumblr attitude towards them is not nearly as bad as when I see this level of self-righteous zealousness leveled at other tumblr users. Honestly, as someone who comes from a very conservative religious background, it reminds me of nothing so much as those people in religious groups who seem to LOVE it when other people ‘sin’ and who lurk around waiting to find out that other people have messed up and then jump on them and badmouth them to everyone and basically just act like the exact opposite of how the tennants of their faith call them to act.
So many people forget that tumblr is full of really young people. I mean, I’m a dinosaur in my mid-twenties, and I’m in a constant process of educating myself. But when I was the age of the majority of tumblr, I knew NOTHING about systemic oppression. Nothing. I grew up in a very sheltered evangelical environment where I was taught to treat everyone with respect and kindness and politeness and that that would pretty much keep me from doing anything wrong. I was never, ever taught about systemic injustice. I didn’t know it existed. Yes, I was one of those ‘stupid’ people who thought that, say, racism was about actively hating/being cruel to people of a different race than you, and since I would never dream of doing that, I couldn’t possibly do anything racist. It was only when I got to college and started reading more widely on the internet that I discovered this whole new world of ideas about how the world was set up. That’s how I discovered feminism and the need for it, the idea of systemic oppression and the patriarchy/kyriarchy and heiarchies in general. Up until then I knew nothing. And I think of what would have happened to me personally if I’d said something unintentionally offensive/hurtful when I was that age and people ripped into me. It would have crushed me. It would have. And I realize that’s nothing compared to the constant grinding under the heel that people who are oppressed go through every day—but God, I used to think feminism was a bad thing! I did! Now it’s as necessary to me as oxygen, but I would have been turned off to it completely if I had felt attacked using it, despite how desperately I needed it…because I didn’t know that I needed it.
I think it’s good to call people out on problematic things they say. I really do. And I think anger is powerful and necessary. But I think that sometimes that anger should be at the system or at people in power who perpetuate oppression, not at some kid who’s probably got no clue what they said was wrong because they’ve been brainwashed by the culture they live in not to see the oppression around them. I’m not saying people need to pander to offensive people, especially when they’re privileged. But there’s a big difference between a matter-of-fact, “Hey, you screwed up big-time here”/“hey, that think you said really, really hurt me”/“hey, you seem to have some ideas about people who are different than you that are very incorrect” and someone’s inbox being flooded with insults. I realize this skates perilously close to the tone argument, and I want to emphasize that I’m not telling people they can’t be angry about things. BE ANGRY. But maybe don’t unleash the fullness of your anger on someone who maybe has no idea what they’re doing is wrong. Rant and rave and scream on your own blog about it. Talk about how it represents just one more terrible thing you have to deal with day in and day out and how sometimes you think you’re going to explode from trying to carry all of that around. But before you contact the person who said or did whatever pissed you off, take a moment to think: is this something that shows real malice or is this something that perhaps signals that this person is just really ignorant? It’s hard to tell sometimes, but I do think we should take the time to think about it. You don’t have the responsibility to educate anyone. But if you do decide to contact them, I think it’s a good thing to take their possible situation into account. Intent doesn’t lessen the pain or anger that person stirred in you. But intent can give us some idea of whether that person could be brought around to enlightenment. Don’t we want everyone to come around to our team? Isn’t that the goal?
People can be eduated. Even deeply, deeply ignorant people. I’m living proof of that. But it probably wouldn’t have happened if I’d been a very young, very vulnerable, and very sheltered girl who felt overwhelmed by people older, more educated, and more articulate than I was telling me what a terrible person I was. That would have triggered my anxiety on a profound level. I know it would have. I just want people to be careful with each other.
