[id: a tweet thread by twitter user âKatherine Crossâ @ Quinnae_Moon
It begins with a qrt of a tweet by twitter user âpenitent admirerâ @ loudpenitent
âA disturbing amount of Online Discourse these days from the Puriteens et al is entirely a desperate attempt to make the world âsafeâ by giving you a set of cheat codes about how to Purge The Evil From Our Midst.
Itâs nega-pickup artist logic, social interaction as a ruleset.â
Katherine Cross said in response:
âIn my many discussions on activism down the years, Iâve said that one of the most dangerous things we tend to do is treat *insights* as rules. Things like the âtone argument,â for instance, or âintent doesnât matter.â
Itâs insightful to note that marginalized people are more likely to have their tone policed, or used as an excuse not to hear them.
it does not mean that oneâs tone can never be a problem under any circumstances whatsoever.
Similarly, itâs insightful to note that whatever your intentions, any harm you caused remains.
It does not mean that we should always conflate open hostility with simple accidents or ignorance.
By calcifying such insights into inflexible rules, we gamify activism by making it a âwinnableâ sequence of inputs. To no oneâs surprise, this is part of why social justice communities are vulnerable to exploitation by bad actors. Itâs very easy to *say* the right things.
So easy to *say* whatâs right, and perform everything to a tee. And since thatâs where all the emphasis is, in viewing oppression as evidenced by social faux pas, it allows truly abusive and toxic people to pantomime their way past scrutiny for months or years.
Meanwhile, it is precisely this sort of academic perfection that is most elusive for the marginalized- we who were raised in a world where compromise was a way of life.
That means that, in a world where âcontextâ can only ever be a bad faith excuse to escape accountability, you are left with little recourse to defend yourself if you run afoul of an unwritten rule.
And this means those of us, like trans women of color, are often excluded from the spaces notionally advocating for us. Too messy, not up on the latest language, not living our politics perfectly enough.
And I want to stress something here. Iâve been beating this drum since at least 2012. Itâs not an issue among âteens,â though it certainly affect those youngest and newest to activism most acutely. Itâs something elders do too. My generation does it. We *all* do.
Consider the structure of every online callout:
âWhat does that mean!?â
*variously confused muttering*
^ this is where the rules leave us time after time. And while I donât hold much hope these days, we can still make different choices.â
