We have a memory and manipulation problem, Internet, with the first feeding into the second in a major way. Institutionalized structures create a need for oppression in order to maintain those structures. This is as true of post-fundamentalist Christianity as it is with conservative Christianity. This is as true of neo-liberalism as it is of the Tea Party Nation. The preservation of institutions through the perpetuation of oppressions – through the oppression of those more marginalized than us who dare speak out – is a problem that plagues all political and religious stripes and parties.
 With the advent of online activism and the various little schisms that came with that, collective memory has shortened to the point where a person’s story can change within a week and they will still find people who defend their narrative as true. This trend highlights and throws into stark relief the inborn inconsistency of the human will and its positions and opinions.
But we're not here to write a thinkpiece about how the Internet shows us to be the inconsistent humans we are. We're here to write about how the Internet’s poor collective memory benefits the manipulators among us, allowing them to shift and change the story. Those who do remember and recognize the patterns of manipulation are simultaneously asked to show proof and, when proof appears, are accused of keeping ledgers of wrongs.
Consider this an archive, Internet, of one of the manipulators in your midst. We lay out this evidence before you and ask that you draw your own conclusions. You may feel uncomfortable. You may feel duped. You may feel angry if you realize the manipulation. Work through those feelings. Take this information with you and go work it out for yourself. That’s all we ask of you.
Here is a vicious cycle of abuse – particularly manipulative emotional abuse. Emotional abuse involves various different signs, but a large part of the cycle with someone behaving abusively is that they:
Minimize the pain they’ve caused – also known as gaslighting
Hold you emotionally responsible for the hurt they caused, often extremely through invoking threats or thoughts of suicide
Ignore personal boundaries and insist upon sharing secrets without corresponding intimacy
When checked on their abuse, offering a seemingly sincere apology, only to return to the abusive behavior a couple of months later (often not in the exact same form, which makes it harder to spot the pattern).
When this emotional abuse takes place with the leader of a large community of people, many in the community can unwittingly play along by downplaying the narrative of the victims, blaming the victims outright, pushing for proof or evidence of hurt/pain, and rallying around the leader. We know this well as we’ve seen it happen time and again with various spiritually abusive churches around the United States.
We write this not to condemn Stephanie Drury, leader of Stuff Christian Culture Likes, but to urge her to seek help in a community that does not enable this manipulative behavior. How she chooses to react to her feelings on this matter is up to her; we sincerely hope that she will change and break the pattern of abuse she seems to unknowingly be perpetuating.
Let’s start at the present.
On January 5th, 2014, Drury purposefully manipulated a tweet to make it sound like a death threat against her:
This is the original tweet, in context:
She then continued to play it up:
This was left up for an hour before Drury was corrected on the issue and RT’d the tweet in full. She blamed the misquoted tweet on character limits:
But this isn't the first time she's manipulated tweets.
Earlier in December, Drury posted a screenshot of a tweet that called out SCCL's abusive cycle over on her nearly 7k member facebook page. The person who said it is a non-binary trans* person who uses the pronouns them/they/their. Despite consistent misgendering of this tweeter, Drury did not correct her followers. Instead, she demanded that the trans* person apologize to Drury for the hurt they caused:
She also used the specter of suicide to re-center her emotional state in the conversation, while simultaneously disregarding and minimizing the pain she caused the person:
In the meantime, Drury changed the wording of tweets arguing against her to make them seem mean:
 She used her own emotional state as an excuse for her behavior, while simultaneously denying that she was doing anything wrong:
 She also said she couldn't correct the misgendering because she was at work, but yet was tweeting:
After all this, she offered an insincere apology:
And made demands about the quality of the apology offered her:
Later, she speculated about the history of the people “oppressing” her and excused her own actions by making everyone else responsible for her triggers. Here is the post on facebook:
And we all know this isn’t the first time this cycle has played out, particularly with trans* and queer folks. Back in February, the infamous tr*nnygate reared its head. But prior to this, it was not unusual for her to use that word:
But on February 7th, 2013, she got called on it, and did not respond well:
She insisted that no “actual” trans* people had called her out and therefore no one could be hurt. (This, of course, fails to note that if one is flinging about a slur, it’s unlikely that people are going to out themselves as victims of that slur).
She kept using the word with people who had asked her not to use it:
As well as cracking jokes about the word:
Despite all the protests, it wasn’t until a man approached in what she deemed as a “relational” manner that she suddenly realized her wrong:
She then posted a long, extended blog post that focused on her feelings and her reactions. She referred to the word as “not nice,” and "unkind," following it with a long explanation of her emotional state and her history. She then praises the man who sent her the link as a “self-sacrificing” who “took it on the chin” and helped her to “kind of get it.” She also tweeted an apology, which she quotes:
"I'm sorry. I was really insensitive and cunty. Can you forgive me? I wish I could go back in time and undo those things I said. I want the best for you. I just want you to know how deeply sorry I am to have hurt you at all. I don't mean to imply you ever need to forgive me, I guess the main thing is I feel horrible I hurt you"Â
This apology, again, focuses on her feelings – wanting to be forgiven, “the main this is I feel horrible I hurt you,” and repeating how deeply sorry she is without explicating what specifically she did wrong (nor does it contain any kind of pledge to change in the future). This is also the only apology contained within a 1000+ word blog post.
Even then, she did not offer a sincere apology toward any of the specific people who were hurt, instead simply tweeting:
Once the fuss died down, Stephy was accepted by the members of SCCL again, and those who still had problems with her language were ostracized from the community as unforgiving. The manipulation that happened here is very specific – she managed to make a situation in which she hurt others about her feelings about being called on that hurt, and make herself the victim of “mean people,” rather than actually reflecting on the hurt she caused. She spends a whole lot of time talking about her own hurt, but has barely a blip reserved for the hurt she caused. This is the pattern of emotional abuse.
It's worth noting, too, that she didn't give up on tweeting the offensive slur:
These are the specific, recent instances of problems, and the observations are currently confined to Twitter. There are have been numerous issues on Facebook as well, where she responded with anger toward people attempting to correct her wrongs:
Aside from the patterns of abusive behaviors, Drury’s investment in fighting oppressions seems quite shallow. The following section may be especially triggering for some readers. Here, we have a catalog of jokes:
She also mocks mental health care:
The last two are particularly important to note as Drury uses the language of marginalization to justify using words that carry connotations of oppression. She also claims that a black woman is marginalizing her as a white woman.
This last is especially important, as this is where many began to first notice the pattern of abusive behavior and the idea that “calling out” is evil. When she triggered another rape survivor with her jokes, she said that survivor should unfollow:
This is very callous, especially for someone who later demands apologies from people who trigger her.
So there you have it, Internet. It is now yours to decide what to do with as you choose.
