#self policing

[funeral]

Helen O'Grady, Woman’s Relationship With Herself: Gender, Foucault and Therapy

[sapphire-wine]

Need everybody but the cool people to unfollow me sorry everyone else

[goingtiny]

No Free Labor for Authoritarians: Censorship and Dissent in Singapore  - Adi Magazine

Two thoughts ran through my mind as I was escorted to the women’s toilets at the police station so the investigators could confiscate the T-

My country—known for being clean, efficient, and “strict”—is no totalitarian state. Presided over by a supremely tech optimistic government, me and my people are hyper-connected, constantly glued to our devices and our social media, on which plenty of anti-establishment comments can be found. We have a small but busy civil society scene, and an emergent leftist movement that’s building grassroots capacity for organizing. It’s a disservice to stereotype us Singaporeans as oppressed, timid, politically apathetic digits in an island dictatorship. 

But it would also be a mistake to assume that we’re free.

What we have is a calibrated, insidious, and petty system of control that allows the government to promote the country as a cosmopolitan, open-for-business city-state while fencing public discourse into boundaries that they choose. This is achieved through legislation, regulation, enforcement, and bureaucracy, all presented as being in the interest of national security, stability, the maintenance of social harmony, and the protection of the Singaporean way of life. The reality on the ground is our political freedoms and civil liberties are dwindling, and our capacity for dissent and activism has been stifled. But if you point it out, the government will deny it. 

[pinkypoodle]

Black people & women always self police themselves. Like, everyone is always watching, judging, or ready to call something out, so people end up monitoring themselves and each other constantly. We do this for survival, perception, & not wanting to give outsiders reasons to stereotype or attack us. The pressure to be “acceptable” or “safe” all the time is exhausting, and it shapes how groups behave internally. You end up policing yourself before anyone else can, and it’s wild how normalized that has become.

[susanoos-wife]

Policing your community of genuinely bad actors (not people you just don't like or just don't get along with,) is a necessity unless you want your community to fall apart. Just because you're not one of the bad apples doesn't mean that you have free reign to sit back and let the bad apples run wild.

[lary-the-lizard]

You ever think about how incredibly WEIRD and WRONG it is that we live in a society where it’s not only frowned upon but often punishable to eat (in most places), talk loudly, run, sing, sit down for long periods of time, sleep, and we respect that?!

Furthermore, if you don’t look a certain way, are obviously sick, smell bad, dressed badly, or act strangely, the only way people can help you is by putting in massive debt (calling the ambulance) or getting you in serious trouble (calling the police). The few services that can give you immediate help are hugely inaccessible (homeless shelters and food drives). And the only way to get government help is to go through hours and hours of complicated paperwork and interviews and require lots of certifications that are also difficult to obtain. AND WE JUST GO WITH IT?!

[dracaspina]

Found a new way to test myself for racial bias

A dude was talking to me while I was working. He started out as a little odd, but ok. Then he started getting weird, and walking the line of creepy.

I had to ask myself: Is he being creepy, or is it just because he looked middle eastern and had an accent?

So, I imagined him with a standard US accent for my region and as white: it was still creepy.

I’ve realized that a few times in the past that I unconsciously treated someone differently, or have them less consideration because they were black or foreign, and that bothers me.

(Example, once I was working at a both at a festival where we had something we were helping the public make from kits. After a certain point, there was a huge line, and a couple of black parents asked me if I could just pass them a couple of kits to make outside of the crush, and I blindly followed my instructions and said “sorry, we’re supposed to make them at the table.” A couple of hours later, a couple of white parents asked me the same thing, and I just handed some kits over. When the festival was over, I still had several hundred kits left, it’s not like I would have run out. Thinking about that in retrospect, I am really ashamed.)

I’ve had a couple of black guys ask me out, and I politely declined. Was I being racist, or just not attracted to them in particular? I did have a relationship with a guy from Trinidad for a while, and there are a couple of black celebrities that I think are really cute. I don’t know.

Then again, in general the black guys who I refuse tend to be nicer and more accepting of my refusals. There have been some white guys who got incredibly belligerent when I declined their advances. Then again, there was that asshole who groped me in front of a crowd.

I’ve also been mugged a couple of times, once by a man from Ghana, another time by a black homeless person. Is that coloring my responses to other people?

Anyway, back to the test. I think, if we see someone doing something that makes us uncomfortable, try re-imagining that person to look like yourself. Think of all the trouble that we could avoid!

See a black guy barbecueing and want to call 911? Would you do that if he looked like your dad?

See a homeless person in a movie theater? Would you harass him and have him arrested (causing him to lose his job) if he didn’t have a large backpack?

See a bunch of Latino kids hanging out in the park? Would you think a bunch of white kids hanging out were up to trouble?

So, that’s what I’m going to do the next time someone who isn’t white unsettles me. If what they are doing is fine if they look like me, than I’ll move on. If it is still bad when I imagine them as white, then I’ll do something.

[toasterpoker]