The Importance of Naming Bigotry

Over and over again this conversation happens:

“Anyone who voted for Trump is racist and sexist.”

“Well, you’re never going to convince them of anything if you call them that.”

Leaving aside the fact that not everyone particularly cares at this point about convincing them of anything or thinks that’s even possible, this conversation is unproductive because the people in it are talking past each other.

The fact that we acknowledge that Trump voters are racist and sexist doesn’t mean we have to open a discussion with one of them by announcing that they are racist and sexist, and the fact that we may use different language to try to engage with Trump voters doesn’t mean that we have to abandon a potentially crucial theoretical framework in our own heads and spaces. You can think something without saying it out loud in a particular situation.

Personally, I don’t care a whole lot about which words we happen to call Trump voters; what we call them for the purposes of our own internal conversations doesn’t change what they do and what they believe. As I discussed in my last post, right-wingers have made their beliefs about various social groups abundantly clear, and whichever words you chose to use to describe those beliefs, they are still out there, and still affecting public policy and group behavior in measurable, observable, and harmful ways.

However, I think that words like “racist” and “sexist” are appropriate descriptors for Trump voters for two reasons: 1) the majority of them would endorse statements that easily fit the definitions of those words, such as “Black people are more dangerous than white people” and “Women aren’t fit to be president”; and 2) even those who would not endorse those statements still voted for the most openly bigoted presidential candidate in modern American history, who has stated an intent to harm marginalized people in multiple ways.

Racism and sexism aren’t just about beliefs. They’re also about behaviors. Someone who truly believes in racial equality but for whatever reason refuses to hire people of color to work at their company is acting in a racist way. Someone who doesn’t care one way or the other about race but helps elect someone who repeatedly states an intent to violate the civil rights of particular racial groups is also acting in a racist way. I get that it’s difficult to think of your actions as having consequences when elections are decided by millions of votes, but the fact that millions of people are equally responsible doesn’t mean you aren’t.

One of the few things I think that the edgy white liberal thinkpieces are getting right is that, indeed, screaming “You’re sexist!” at a Trump voter probably won’t make them change their minds about their sexism or about voting for Trump. Thankfully, nobody has seriously suggested that it would; believe it or not, the people of color and women who have been writing about this problem for years have much more nuanced suggestions than that.

The problem with screaming “You’re sexist!” at Trump voters is threefold: 1) screaming at people usually causes them to shut down and stop learning, which is why I don’t recommend it in any situation that is meant to be educational; 2) labeling someone’s behavior “sexist” doesn’t actually tell them what they did wrong or what you would like them to do differently; and 3) if you do use it as a jumping-off point to explain what exactly they did wrong and what you would like them to do differently, you probably won’t get anywhere because they probably disagree that those things are wrong.

For instance, I’ve been in arguments with conservatives about Black Lives Matter and our criminal justice system in which I would claim that the system is racist because it disproportionately targets people of color, especially Black men, as potential criminals and treats them more harshly than others. The conservative would respond that that’s because people of color, especially Black men, are much more likely to be criminals. I would point to data that show that there is overall no racial difference in criminal activity; that whites are actually more likely to commit certain crimes; that the data that shows that Black people are more likely to commit crimes is based on convictions and it’s also been shown that they are more likely to get accused and convicted (including falsely) in the first place and etc etc etc. And the conservative would say that that data is just liberal propaganda and that everyone obviously knows that Black people are simply more dangerous than white people, so I should be thanking our brave police forces for keeping me safe from them. I would point out that in our country it’s supposed to be unconstitutional to execute a criminal, actual or suspected, on the street without a trial. They shrug and say that sometimes bad things happen and I can’t let that get to me.

(These experiences, plus research about persuasion, have convinced me that there’s literally no point in arguing with someone by presenting them with factual evidence they disagree with.)

If you define “racism” to someone and they disagree that it’s a bad thing, then obviously you’re not going to get anywhere by telling them that they did something racist. If they do think it’s a bad thing, they’ll just waste your time arguing about how what they said or did isn’t actually racist and that they “don’t have a racist bone in their body.”

(While it’s plausible that calling Trump voters sexist and racist will just reinforce their belief that liberals look down on them and hate them, contrary to the thinkpiece du jour, I don’t think that this is what literally created the systems of sexism and racism in this country. I’m pretty sure the transatlantic slave trade predated Vox.com significantly.)

None of this means that we shouldn’t consider them sexist and racist. As I also discussed in my previous post, sugarcoating, euphemizing, or simply ignoring conservatives’ beliefs about various social groups is not going to be helpful in defeating their ideology. You may choose not to come at a Trump voter accusing them of hating women, but you need to keep in the back of your head the fact that they would probably endorse lots and lots and lots of sexist statements–or at least not be very bothered by them.

If we acknowledge that Trump supporters are racist and sexist and just about every other kind of -ist, that changes our behavior and predictions in a few ways. First of all, that informs us what Trump can and can’t get away with. Friends of mine have joked that after all of these allegations–sexual assault, fraud, tax evasion, and so on–the only thing Trump could do that would actually lose him a significant number of supporters is come out in support of Black Lives Matter. Obviously that’s not going to happen, and it’s also clear that just about anything he does to target marginalized people, no matter how flagrant, will be met with either tacit approval or open celebration by his supporters.

If we assume that Trump supporters endorse many bigoted beliefs, then we cannot appeal to their better natures to stop him. It seems that so far, Trump voters who regret their choice regret it mostly because he has not tried to imprison Hillary Clinton and because his fellow Republicans are hoping to dismantle Medicare.

Second, when it does come to engaging with Trump supporters, awareness of their bigotry can help you choose the best approach. Nothing he has said about women, people of color, or other marginalized people will be relevant. It won’t be like talking left-wingers out of supporting Hillary Clinton. You will have to show how Trump is a threat to the sorts of American values they do hold dear, such as free speech and relatively unregulated markets.

Third, acknowledging the bigotry of the Republican base is, honestly, a vital self-care tactic for marginalized people. Over and over we have been told that it’s not that, it’s that they love Jesus and want to spread his love, it’s that they’re worried about their taxes, it’s that they want to see their values reflected in our culture just like anyone else would, it’s that they want their jobs back, it’s that the Democrats have ignored their needs, it’s that globalism has shut down their factories so of course they’d be against trade agreements, it’s that some of these immigrants are probably bad people so naturally we should vet them carefully, it’s that the police have very stressful jobs so you can’t blame them for freaking out sometimes, it’s that Jesus was persecuted for his beliefs and so are they, it’s that marriage is supposed to be for procreation, it’s that if you work hard you won’t be poor or homeless, it’s that if you do something sinful like have premarital sex it’s only fair that you should have to face the consequences, it’s that fetuses are living babies, it’s that they miss the way things used to be when everyone knew their place and nobody asked for more than what they got, it’s anything but the fact that they simply believe that men are better than women, white people are better than non-white people, and LGBTQ people are disgusting abominations altogether.

And almost all of us, to a person, grew up with that awful buzzing voice in the backs of our minds: What if it’s me? What if I’m the problem? What if I’m disgusting, sinful, ugly, criminal, dangerous, lazy, stupid, sick? What if I’m a bitch, an outsider, a slut, an animal? What if I deserve everything they’ve done to me, and everything they still intend to do?

The reason marginalized people have been so adamant about naming Trump and his supporters for who they are isn’t because we still have much hope that they’ll feel even a twinge of shame, but because naming them for who they are is how we survive them.

Naming bigots as bigots allows us to stop blaming ourselves for our own oppression. And as soon as we’re able to direct blame outward rather than inward, we become able to fight it.


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The Importance of Naming Bigotry
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Should Therapists Decline to Work With Clients They’re Bigoted Against?

armchairs

[CN: homophobia, thought experiment-ish discussion of bigotry]

The topic of therapists refusing to work with particular clients due to differences in values is one that came up often when I was in graduate school, and continues to come up often as therapists–many of whom come from traditional Christian backgrounds–confront the reality of practicing in diverse settings.

“Differences in values” usually refers to homophobic therapists not wanting to work with lesbian, gay, and bi/pan clients, but it can actually apply to tons of different marginalized identities: trans, poly, kinky, atheist, Muslim, and more. Differences in values can also impact therapeutic work with clients who are making decisions that the therapist strongly disagrees with for whatever reason, such as getting a divorce, getting an abortion, accusing someone of sexual assault, and so on.

Although it might seem counterintuitive, competent and ethical therapists occasionally choose not to work with particular clients for all sorts of reasons. They may feel that they lack sufficient knowledge or experience to help a client with a particular niche issue or disorder, and that they can’t make up for it with extra training quickly enough to avoid harming the client. They may be triggered by some aspect of the client–for instance, some therapists cannot work with convicted/admitted rapists, especially if pedophilia is involved. They may realize they’re too closely connected to the client within their community–for instance, the client is the parent of the therapist’s child’s best friend, or the client is dating a close friend of the therapist. (Although in these situations, openly discussing it with the client and setting some boundaries and expectations also goes a long way.)

Regardless, if a therapist chooses not to work with a client, it’s their ethical responsibility to refer the client to another professional who can work with them effectively. So it’s never just like, “Nope, can’t help ya, sorry.” And if you ever get that response while seeking therapy, know that you’re entitled to get some help finding someone else.

So choosing not to work with particular clients due to lack of knowledge/skill, personal triggers, and boundary issues is accepted in the field. How about choosing not to work with particular clients because you cannot accept their identities or lifestyle choices?

Continue reading “Should Therapists Decline to Work With Clients They’re Bigoted Against?”

Should Therapists Decline to Work With Clients They’re Bigoted Against?

"You Need Some New Friends!"

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When I write about personal experiences with sexism, homophobia, ableism, and other forms of bigotry, a common response is: “Wow, you need some new friends! I’m a [insert marginalized identity here] and nobody treats me this way!” (Bonus points for “I don’t let anybody treat me this way!”)

Charitably, I understand where this is coming from. I am seen as a young, possibly naive and vulnerable person who just doesn’t understand that some of the crap I’ve gotten from people isn’t inevitable and not everyone’s going to treat me this way. This well-meaning older person just wants to let me know that I can find better friends who won’t treat me in these crappy ways.

But there are a few wrong assumptions inherent in these statements, such as:

  • I am too young and naive to know that I can in fact expect people to treat me better
  • I have no people in my life already who treat me better
  • I fail to set boundaries and/or kick people out of my life when they treat me poorly
  • I need to be reminded that #NotAllPeople are bigoted
  • I am writing in order to discuss my personal problems and not broader, systemic problems

Ironically, I’m actually known (among people who actually know me, that is) for being pretty quick to set boundaries and not at all squeamish about ending friendships, relationships, and acquaintanceships in which I don’t feel that I am being treated with the respect I deserve. It’s an approach I advocate pretty freely, because it has set me free: free from shitty relationships, free from friends who passive-aggressively bring me down, free from imbalanced demands for emotional labor, free (mostly) from microaggressions. Obviously not everybody always has the option to just get rid of people who treat them poorly, but when the option is available, I always err on the side of taking it.

In fact, if I didn’t believe that it’s possible for me to be treated well, I wouldn’t be writing articles about how to avoid sexism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry. The fact that I write articles about that kind of implies that I think “better friends” (at the very least) is a reasonable goal for marginalized folks to set for themselves.

Aside from the condescending nature of these comments–I can manage my personal relationships on my own, thanks–they tend to miss the point. If I write an article about men, women, and emotional labor and you respond with “Damn, girl, you need some better dudes in your life!”, you’re missing the point that the problem is not confined to a few crappy dudes I’ve gotten myself tangled up with. Yes, there are better and worse dudes out there, and I generally have the privilege to seek out the better ones, but that doesn’t solve the overall problem of gendered expectations surrounding emotional labor. I can seek out better dudes all I want; that won’t help other women.

You could argue that these responses are inevitable given that I’m sharing personal anecdotes and of course readers would be concerned about my wellbeing. But that’s a catch-22. When people write about bigotry and oppression without including personal anecdotes, readers have difficulty connecting these abstract concepts with concrete experiences that actual human beings have. When we do include personal anecdotes, readers start debating the merits of those anecdotes and giving us unsolicited advice rather than focusing on the actual issue under discussion. You can’t really win.

So I aim for combining the two–discussion of theoretical concepts along with personal anecdotes. Some folks still get caught up on the personal anecdotes and decide that I need help running my social life. Oh well.

Note, though, that when I write about the ways in which sexism, homophobia, ableism, and ageism have impacted my life, I’m not always talking about people who were my actual friends, and I’m not always talking about people who are in my life right now. Anyone I interact with in passing can potentially express bigotry towards me, and despite my relatively young age, I’ve been old enough to have friends and partners for quite a while now. There are a lot of people I used to be close with who are no longer in my life. There are a lot of incidents that I’ve analyzed years after the fact, once I’d developed an understanding of things like sexual assault, and realized were tied to systematic oppression in some way. (For instance, I realized at one point that all of my first sexual experiences as a teenager were nonconsensual. Don’t worry, concerned older readers, I haven’t spoken to that man in years and I’m quite aware that nicer men exist.)

Finally, the “get new friends” response concerns me because it’s so reminiscent of the “not all _____” response, which is weird because it’s usually coming from fellow marginalized folks. Some women think it’s really important to let me know that the men they date aren’t nearly as crappy as the men I’ve dated (by the way, most of the men I’ve dated have been wonderful, but blog posts about how great my exes are seem neither appropriate nor interesting). There’s a self-aggrandizement inherent in that response: “Well, I have a wonderful boyfriend who always does his share of the housework and never mansplains or questions my competence and always makes sure that sex is pleasurable for me too but also totally understands when I don’t feel like having sex that night.” For all that the commenter means to highlight the wonderful man/straight ally/supportive neurotypical friend/etc in their life, they usually come across like they’re trying to brag about their superior friend-finding abilities.

Imagine how hurtful “you need better friends!” would be if that weren’t an option that’s available to me right now. Because sometimes, for some people, it isn’t. Maybe the most they can do is try to gently nudge their existing friends toward a path of lesser bigotry, or do some excellent self-care to minimize the harm of that bigotry. “You need better friends!” is flippant and dismissive in this context. Not everybody gets to design a perfect social circle.

Besides that, we can’t all just platonic-Lysistrata our way out of systematic oppression. Even if all the bigots ended up being friends with each other and the rest of us all got to have wonderful progressive friend groups with absolutely no bigotry, those bigots would still have a disproportionate influence on our society and therefore disproportionate power to oppress us. (Psst: you can’t neatly separate people into categories like “bigot” and “totally not bigot” anyway.) For instance, my friends and I are definitely absolutely not friends with the Republicans in our state legislature, and yet look.

Some people choose to cut bigoted people out of their lives. Other people choose to keep them around and try to make them better. Most people choose on a case-by-case basis. Regardless, “just get new friends” isn’t an appropriate response to someone sharing their experiences with bigotry. As uncomfortable as it can be to acknowledge that sometimes you can’t just swoop in and fix someone’s problems for them, it’s necessary.

~~~

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"You Need Some New Friends!"

Why "Hipster Sexism" Fails

[Content note: sexual harassment & domestic violence]

My new post at the Daily Dot is about “hipster sexism/racism” in fashion.

It doesn’t surprise me at all when CEOs of major clothing retailers or famous celebrity photographers turn out to be harassing, intimidating, assaulting, or abusing women, because the same thing happens everywhere else: politicstech companies, sports, evenscience journalism. It happens everywhere a few select people are given excessive power and social capital, and those people are usually (but not always) men.

What the fashion industry does have, however, is a trend of “hipster sexism,” which can be defined roughly as people who hold nominally liberal views on things “pretending” to be sexist “ironically,” because sexism is totally over and so now it’s funny. The New Republic‘s Eleanor Margolis writes of Charney and Richardson:

The two men are emblematic of a hipster veneer that’s so often used to cover up the mistreatment of women… With their 1970s porn star aesthetic seems to come this notion that they’re only subjugating women ironically: we’ll carry on buying clothes from people who look like the result of Ron Jeremy humping a copy of Vice. Misogyny is OK, as long as it pastiches a bygone era of kitsch female subjugation; as long as it’s retro. These bizarre double standards are only serving to blur the lines…between sexism and chicness.

Margolis doesn’t note the fact that the hipster sexism in fashion also has a racist corollary, which Racialicious Thea Kim discusses at length. If you’ve stepped inside an Urban Outfitters or attended a music festival lately, you’re probably familiar with the trappings of hipster racism—that unmistakable “look at me I’m so over racism” chic that affluent young white folks are presumably going for when they wear blackface to a Halloween party or don a Native headdress to a concert.

Why do “ironic”/”hipster” sexism and racism hold such appeal for slightly left-leaning, “fashionable” young people? There’s an optimistic possibility and a cynical one. The optimistic one is that it allows people to perpetuate the comforting idea that inequality is now so passe that pretending at it is hilariously ludicrous. The cynical one is that it allows people to safely express the actual sexist and racist beliefs that they still hold while maintaining plausible deniability: ”No, you don’t understand, I was wearing that blackface ironically!”

Regardless, sexism and racism aren’t over; it’s only some of their most visible and iconic components that have mostly disappeared from our society. When a dude jokes “ironically” about hitting women, he might think that nowadays domestic violence is Very Rare and taken Very Seriously and the police will immediately come and arrest the offending man (perhaps even on a false accusation, which are now “common”). I, on the other hand, might think that many of my female friends are survivors of domestic violence, psychological abuse, or sexual assault, and few of them were taken very seriously at all when they tried to do something about it. So I won’t see anything “ironically” sexist about the joke. To me, it’ll just be plain ol’ boring sexism.

Much of hipster bigotry rests on the assumption that the person wearing the shirt or making the joke is a Really Good Person who would never actually believe such horrible things, so isn’t it hilarious that they’d pretend they do, ha-ha? But making this assumption requires knowing the person quite well, and given how pervasive sexism and racism still are, assuming that a random dude (or a random CEO of a fashion company, per se) is Totally Not Sexist Or Racist isn’t really a reasonable assumption to make.

Read the rest here.

Why "Hipster Sexism" Fails

(How) Should We Call Out Online Bigotry? On "Somebody Said Something Stupid Syndrome"

Over at The Chronicle of Higher Education, Ben Yagoda has a post called, “Must Attention Be Paid?” In it, he describes what he called “Somebody Said Something Stupid Syndrome,” or “SSSSS”:

SSSSS (as I abbreviate it) begins when an individual writes or is recorded as saying something strikingly venal, inhumane, and/or dumb. The quote is then taken up and derided—in social media or blogs—by thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of other individuals. And then it spreads from there.

If you’ve ever seen the roundups of racist tweets that inevitably follow when a person of color does something awesome, or the exposes of shit some crappy pickup artist said, then you’ve witnessed SSSSS in action.

Although Yagoda eventually walks his opinion back somewhat after experiencing SSSSS in his own offline community, he initially takes a firm stance against it:

First, we only have so much space in our brains and time in our days, and there are more important things to spend them on. Second is the junior-high-school teacher’s wisdom: “Don’t pay attention to them. You’ll only encourage them.” Finally, SSSSS is rhetorically weak. It’s not so much an example of the straw-man fallacy—since someone actually said the stupid statement—as the ultimate in anecdotal evidence. The fact that you’ve found some number of people who said a horrible thing proves nothing beyond that those people said that thing. (Of course, when you find a big number of people–or people in power–who have said it, you’ve started to prove something important, and I will pay attention.)

As for why SSSSS is so pervasive, Yagoda gives two reasons: one, that the internet makes stupid statements so much easier to witness, and two, “all the bloggers and posters need something to blog and post about, and Something Stupid Somebody Said (SSSS) would seem to be perfect fodder. All the more so when it confirms one’s worst imaginings about one’s ideological opponents.”

I think Yagoda’s argument (in its pre-walked back state) has both merits and…demerits? I guess that’s the opposite of a merit. I’ll talk about the demerits first.

First of all, assuming that bloggers and journalists as a whole only cover this stuff because they want pageviews displays a lack of imagination (or theory of mind, for the psychologically inclined).

Could it be that they cover it because they find it interesting, relevant, and important? That Yagoda seemingly doesn’t does not mean that nobody else does.

Second, the junior-high-school teacher’s wisdom largely fails in this case. It’s a common belief that people say terrible things because they want the opprobrium that they inevitably receive. Maybe some people do, but most people’s reaction to censure and scorn is to feel, well, bad. That’s how the human brain works. Rejection hurts, even when it’s by a group you despise or a computer, and even when you’re profiting financially from it!

One piece of evidence for this is that the bigoted tweets/Facebook posts/whatever that get strongly called out online often get deleted very soon after that. If the people who post them are just looking for massive amounts of attention, why would they delete the posts just as they’re starting to attract that attention?

(Further, the fact that they get deleted is actually a direct positive result of SSSSS. Fewer shitty posts means that fewer people will be harmed by them, and fewer bigoted norms will be implicitly enforced.)

Even when SSSSS does not stop any bigotry, though, it might still be better than the alternative that Yagoda proposes, which is ignoring the stupid stuff–that is, doing nothing. Folks, nobody will hear you loudly doing nothing about bigotry. Nobody will care that you determinedly, passionately shrugged and closed the browser tab and moved on. The best case scenario of this is that trolls will keep trolling and bigots will keep bigoting.

The best case scenario of speaking up is that you change minds. The good-but-not-best case scenario is that you don’t necessarily change any minds, but the bigot will stop posting bigotry because they’ll realize they’ll be hated for it. And others won’t see that bigotry and either be hurt OR assume that it’s okay and they can do it too.

Third, this: “we only have so much space in our brains and time in our days, and there are more important things to spend them on” seems like a facile argument. People choose what to spend their time and brainspace on. Maybe this topic is not important to Yagoda, but it’s important to other people. I don’t understand how some people spend hours of their week watching sports or memorizing pi to however many digits, but the fact that I think those things are not important (to me) does not mean they are globally unimportant.

Also, it takes two minutes to read an article about something bigoted someone said. That is, all in all, an utterly negligible amount of time even for the busiest of us. But if it’s not important to you, by all means, don’t waste your time on it!

In short, I’m okay with Yagoda saying that this is not important to him and therefore he won’t spend time on it. I’m not okay with Yagoda saying that this is not important period, and therefore nobody should read or write about these things or pay any attention to them at all.

Fourth: “Of course, when you find a big number of people–or people in power–who have said it, you’ve started to prove something important, and I will pay attention.” The fact that Yagoda does not believe that the examples he listed are commonplace and not merely anecdotal really says something. Namely, that he probably hasn’t been listening very much to the people who are targeted by these types of bigotry. He probably also hasn’t been reading the academic research on it, which suggests that these types of bigotry are very common.

People who choose to be “skeptical” (read: hyperskeptical) that bigotry exists and is worth discussing tend to keep raising the standard of “evidence” they’d need to believe us. One racist comment or allegation of sexual assault isn’t enough to show that there’s a problem, sure. How about dozens? How about hundreds? How about every woman and person of color experiences little acts of bigotry based on their gender and/or race, all the time, for their whole lives? What happens online is just one piece of that puzzle.

Fifth, Yagoda does not acknowledge the fact that many people flat-out deny that such bigotry still exists until they see evidence (and even then they sometimes try to explain it away). When I post online about some sexist or homophobic thing I’ve been targeted by, even among my progressive friends there’s usually at least one person who comments with something like “wow I can’t believe someone would say this! it’s the 21st century wow!” Yes, it is, but yes, they did.

Anti-racist Doge to the rescue!
And while Yagoda acts like every time people post one of these things, everyone unanimously comments “wow much stupid such dumb so racism,” that’s not the case at all. People disagree that it’s a big deal, that it’s “really” bigotry, that it’s worth talking about. A common refrain (which Yagoda echoes here) is to call it “stupid” rather than “bigoted,” as in, “Oh, they’re not racist, they’re just being stupid.” What? Okay. They’re being stupid in a racist way, then. That better?

Not talking about bigotry, whether it’s slight or severe, only serves two purposes: making bigots more comfortable and preventing anything from changing. Those are the only two. Bigots do not magically become not-bigots just because we don’t pay attention to them. There are better and worse ways of talking about bigotry, but not talking about it is not an option we should choose.

All of that said, Yagoda makes some good points. First of all, if indeed anyone is engaging in linkbaiting, they should stop. Linkbaiting is, as I’ve written here before, condescending and harmful. Write about bigotry because you think it’s important to write about, not (primarily) to draw pageviews.

Second, “confirm[ing] one’s worst imaginings about one’s ideological opponents” is a problem that I see, too. Folks on all sides of the political spectrum often have trouble seeing their ideological opponents as anything other than an unadulterated identical mass of poop (blame the outgroup homogeneity effect). Sometimes I’ll post something about someone’s abhorrent views and someone will respond with “Oh yeah well I bet they oppose abortion too!” or “I bet they don’t even think people should have food stamps!” Sometimes this is accurate, but often it is not. Political beliefs do fall into broad categories, but they can also be very nuanced. People can support comprehensive sex education and oppose abortion. They can oppose abortion and the death penalty. They can support abortion generally as a legal right, but forbid their child from getting one. They might oppose government spending on one social program but support it for another one. And so on.

Talking trash about terrible people can be a way to let off steam, and I’d never tell people they shouldn’t do it because it’s not my place to tell people how to respond to their oppression. However, talking about bigotry is more useful than talking about bigots, not least because it’s more generalizable. Discussing a picture of someone in a horrible blackface Trayvon Martin costume (TW) isn’t just an opportunity to make fun of a racist person; it can be a way to teach people about why blackface is racist, why the murder of Trayvon and the outcome of Zimmerman’s trial was racist, and so on. (Related: what vlogger Jay Smooth refers to as having the “what they did” conversation rather than the “what they are” conversation.)

It’s important, I think, to expand the conversation beyond the original incident or tweet or soundbite that sparked it. If it really were just about a few teenagers posting racist shit on Twitter, that would still be a problem, but it wouldn’t be as big of a problem as the fact that they did it because our culture taught them that racism.

However, I don’t think it’s the case, as Yagoda implies, that most people who participate in SSSSS are just doing it to be like “LOL look at the stupid people LOL.” At least, that’s not what I see. We want to have these complex discussions.

There are actually two other issues with SSSSS that Yagoda does not mention. One is that the people called out are often teenagers, and their full names get spread all over the internet. While I’m not especially sympathetic to people who post terribly bigoted things online, is it fair for someone to be unable to get into college or get a job because of something they said when they were 14? I’m not sure.

The other issue is much more complex, and is best discussed not by me, but by blogger david brothers, who refers to racism-related SSSSS as “passive white supremacy” and explains why:

The racism this story depicts is binary. It’s on or off, is you is or is you ain’t this racist, and that encourages the idea that racism isn’t something you personally do or are. It’s something other people do. You don’t do that, right? So you aren’t racist!

But any colored folk can tell you that’s not how racism works. Everybody is a little racist. There are hundreds of learned reactions to different groups of people to unlearn, not to mention the areas of society where racist sentiment is implicit instead of explicit, like zoning laws or the prison industrial complex or the war on drugs. It’s in all of us. We’re gonna have to live with that racism until we fix it and our selves, and viewing racism as a binary personality choice doesn’t allow for that.

Clearly there’s a lot more nuance here than either “calling out random people’s bigotry is always good” or “calling out random people’s bigotry is never good.” Yagoda himself writes in his piece how he ended up protesting a neighbor’s racist Halloween decoration. However, he does not elaborate on how his thinking about SSSSS evolved, or whether he only considers his own action reasonable because it happened offline as opposed to online.

Hopefully, as online activism evolves, discussions about how to respond to bigotry will become even more complex and fruitful. But what I don’t want is for criticism of the way some people handle these things to become an excuse for (or an endorsement of) doing nothing. Doing nothing is not an acceptable solution.

(How) Should We Call Out Online Bigotry? On "Somebody Said Something Stupid Syndrome"

Intent: Just How Magic Is It?

There’s a saying in the progressive community that intent isn’t fucking magic. It comes from this fabulously snarky post about how not intending to hurt someone doesn’t magically keep them from being hurt.

“Intent is not magic” is one of those simple, catchy phrases we use to get a point across, kind of like “consent is sexy” or “the personal is political.” Like all simple, catchy phrases, it does a great job of creating and perpetuating a meme, but not so great a job of explaining a concept or situation in its full complexity. Luckily, for that we have blog posts!

There is, obviously, lots of truth to the claim that intent is not magic. If something harmful you do accidentally–such as the example used in the blog post, outing a trans person–has consequences for the person you did it to, that person has to deal with those consequences whether you meant to do the thing or not.

But where “intent is not magic” really comes into play with regard to social justice is when people try to use intent as a get-out-of-bigotry-free card. That is, they think that because they didn’t mean that joke to be sexist, it magically isn’t anymore. Because they didn’t mean to be homophobic when they referred to a crappy party as “gay,” then they magically weren’t being homophobic.

When it comes to bigotry, intent doesn’t really factor into it very much. There are Twitter accounts that collect tweets of people literally going “I’m not racist but I just don’t like black people” or “I’m not sexist but women are stupid.” Racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry are more about which ideas you believe in and which structures you support than they are about how you would personally classify your beliefs and actions.

When you say or do something bigoted (intentionally or otherwise) and hurt someone, they’re often hurt not because they think you meant to hurt them, but because what you’ve said or done is just another in a long series of reminders of their place in the world–some more malicious or severe than others, but all microaggressions that research shows have tangible health consequences.

But doesn’t intent make a difference sometimes? After all, I’d feel much better if my friend forgot to come to my birthday party by mistake or because they were taking a sick friend to the hospital rather than because they didn’t want to come but didn’t care enough to change their RSVP. I’d be much more okay with a friend borrowing a dress and ripping it by accident as opposed to on purpose. Saying something that triggers me because you don’t realize it’s a trigger for me is different from triggering me on purpose.

Intent matters a lot for one particular thing: judging someone’s character. Yes, a person who is deliberately, unabashedly racist is probably a “worse” person (whoever you measure that) than someone who says something racist because they’ve never learned that it’s racist. It’s much worse to trigger someone on purpose than to do it accidentally.

The thing is, though, that your character is rarely what’s up for discussion in these situations, and making the discussion all about you and your character is counterproductive, not to mention egotistical.

When someone says something bigoted, what I want to discuss is why it was hurtful, how it props up bigotry, and how you can learn enough not to do something like that in the future. I don’t want to discuss your character or what’s in your heart of hearts. Unless someone proves themselves to be a crappy person–say, by calling me a cunt or telling me that I’m probably a feminist because I’m too ugly to get laid–I generally assume that most people are decent people. That happens to be one of my beliefs about the world. But it’s not really relevant. You can be a decent person and be wrong about gender or race, just like you can be a decent person and be wrong about how evolution works or why the sky is blue.

It’s definitely the case that many people will be less upset if you say something bigoted to them out of ignorance rather than out of malice. But it’s important to keep in mind that once the person is already upset, they’re already upset. At that point, the best thing to do is to apologize and seek understanding of what you did, not provide them with a complete audit of your intentions and how not-bad they were. You can, if you’d like, embed your not-bad intentions within your apology: “I had no idea that was so hurtful and didn’t mean to say something homophobic, but I understand why you’re hurt by it and I’m sorry.”

You know how they say that you can’t talk someone into loving you? You also can’t talk someone out of being upset with you, unless that talking includes some concrete steps on your part to make amends for what happened. “You shouldn’t be upset because I didn’t mean it that way” isn’t going to cut it.

Note, again, that not meaning to say something homophobic does not mean you haven’t said something homophobic. Just like not meaning to break a nice vase doesn’t mean it’s not broken.

On a similar note, not intending to hurt someone is different from intending not to hurt them. If someone accidentally breaks my nice vase, I might be glad in the back of my mind that they didn’t do it on purpose, but I might still be annoyed that they weren’t being careful around my nice vase, especially if they are often clumsy and break people’s things by accident. The analogy holds up for saying/doing bigoted things, too. People who say/do them rarely do so just once.

I’m not going to respect you just for not meaning to say hurtful things. That’s one of those bare-minimum-of-being-a-decent-human-being things. Actively seeking information on how not to be hurtful, on the other hand, is a rarer and more important habit to have.

Arguing about intent distracts from the more important conversation. Don’t turn these conversations into referendums on whether or not you are a good person. Personally, I think you are, or else I wouldn’t be trying to have those conversations with you to begin with.

Intent can make a difference sometimes, but it’s not magic.

Intent: Just How Magic Is It?

How You Know They've Run Out Of Arguments

Steven over at WWJTD informed me of this nonsense:

The newest argument against homosexuality has arrived. It turns out it prevents straight dudes from being friends. Trevin Wax at The Gospel Coalition explains:

“But there is no such thing as absolute freedom when it comes to sexuality. The moment we celebrate or endorse certain behaviors, we curtail freedom in other areas. This is the nature of freedom.”

Wax then lists a few examples of platonic affection between straight men which have fallen out of vogue, such as lovingly written letters, holding hands and sharing a bed.

Wax attributes this lack of affection between men as the result of gay people being accepted into society. Because if there are gays, you don’t want to risk being mistaken for one of those people. He then goes on to talk about how a hypothetical pro-incest movement would damage his ability to be affectionate with his daughter.

As Steven points out, Wax nearly stumbles upon a good point:

Where I do agree with Wax is that I think it does suck that hetero men feel they can’t be affectionate with one another. And a good chunk of the reason for that is people fear being seen as gay.

That’s where we stop agreeing, because society moving toward acceptance of gay people won’t hinder hetero same-sex affection. It will bolster it. The less of a big deal being gay becomes, the less people will care if people mistake them for gay.

Where Wax screws up is that he makes a huge correlation-is-not-causation error. Yes, it used to be acceptable for men to be very affectionate with each other (platonically). It also used to be unacceptable to be gay (although, it’s worth noting that there was no such thing as “gay” back when romantic friendships were in vogue). Nowadays it is much more acceptable to be gay, and much less acceptable for men to be affectionate with each other. Therefore one must’ve caused the other, amirite??

No, I am not right. While this isn’t really my field, my hypothesis would be that the cultural stigma we’ve placed on (straight) men being affectionate with each other is largely a side effect of the way our culture sexualizes everything. Think about it. Women often can’t even breastfeed in public anymore because it’s “inappropriate” (read: too sexy). Women can’t be topless in public, not even on beaches, even though in many other Western countries they can. Fathers being affectionate with their daughters and teachers hugging their students are often looked upon with suspicion, because why would an adult want to touch a child if not sexually? (Maybe because touch is a universal way to express all kinds of platonic, romantic, and familial love, as well as friendly affection and reassurance, but whatever.)

The most amusing thing about Wax’s argument to me, though, is how blatant a sign it is that the bigots have truly run out of arguments to use against homosexuality.

After all, haven’t we rehashed all the usual ones hundreds of times by now?

“YEAH WELL HOMOSEXUALITY DOESN’T PRODUCE CHILDREN”
“Yes it can, and anyway, neither do infertile or voluntarily childfree straight couples.”
“YEAH WELL GOD SAID IT’S WRONG”
“Even if that’s true, you can’t make the rest of the country live by your religion.”

“YEAH WELL IT’S UNNATURAL”
“Homosexuality is found in hundreds of animal species; homophobia is only found in one.”
“YEAH WELL THEY’LL CONVERT KIDS INTO BEING GAY TOO”
“No, there’s no evidence for that.”
“YEAH WELL THEY CHOSE TO BE GAY”
No, they didn’t, here are all the studies showing that sexual orientation is not a choice.”
“YEAH WELL THE BEHAVIOR IS A CHOICE”
“So do some people not deserve to have love and sex in their lives?”
“YEAH WELL IT’S A MENTAL DISORDER”
“Then why can’t it be ‘cured,’ why did it get removed from the DSM decades ago, and why can gay people live happy and healthy lives?”
“YEAH WELL IT’S GROSS”
“So is Jersey Shore, but that’s legal.”
“YEAH WELL NOW STRAIGHT DUDES CAN’T HUG EACH OTHER”
“Wut.”
There you have it. They are out of arguments, and now they’re doubling down and reaching for the most inane ones they can think of.
How You Know They've Run Out Of Arguments