Privilege and Narcissism

Image credit:
Joking Hazard card game.
                                                                                      

When you’re familiar with both, at some point you might realize that narcissistic abuse and everyday oppression have a relationship to each other that is analogous to Newtonian physics. They are not exactly the same, but if you apply one to the understanding of the other, you will consistently get HIGHLY USEFUL RESULTS.  

Storytime:

Being a performance artist, Rhapsody often has to get out and make connections that, as a writer, I don’t have to make. All I need is my computer and a wifi connection, but she needs to go to places where people gather. Getting on the radar of a venue’s organizer. Making connections in the local, sex-positive, queer, non-monogamous, indie, music scene. Trying to collaborate with folks to cross-pollinate between fans. There’s a measure of social interaction and gatekeeping that I try to avoid but that is essential for live performance arts. 

Out in the wider social milieu, Rhapsody sort of expects to run into all types. But in the world she’s built around herself of queer, leftist types, there’s a lot more of a curated experience. It takes a certain type to cheer on a song about Mario and Luigi riding train on someone who likes “golden coin showers.” 

There was an artist. Let’s call him Brad. Brad was someone she looked up to. Someone she was excited to meet. Someone she hoped to work with. An artist who’d played the venue Rhapsody had dreamed of playing and worked hard to get to. And while they were chatting about possibly collaborating (another dream of Rhapsody’s), the conversation took a turn. 

Brad was telling Rhapsody that the venue made him change anti-sex-worker slurs (something he thought sacrificed his artistic integrity), and they wouldn’t let him sing a song about being a member of a doubly marginalized subset of the queer community if he wasn’t actually a member of the group in question (a position he found objectionable because he had friends in that community—some of his best, I’m sure). But he had no end of problem bloviating at length about Rhapsody’s own lyric to “peg the patriarchy.” Because that was an offensive concept to him. Suddenly Rhapsody was being mansplained about just how difficult it is nowadays to be a cishet, white guy.

“I’m public enemy number one!” he whined.

Of course, this sentiment isn’t exactly entirely inaccurate from a social justice context. (It’s a little absurd in general, so it certainly gives insight into what Brad thought about social justice.) But there are ways to phrase it that could have held space for that frustration while acknowledging the context in which it mattered: “Being at the top of the social hierarchy means I have a lot of unearned and often unexamined advantages; venues that work hard to be safe spaces aren’t likely to give me free rein to say whatever I want, and that can be frustrating.” This would, of course, also mean not framing what amounts to mild frustration like a whiny victim who is being censored—as if the reaction to oppression is somehow as bad or worse than the oppression itself. Or as if there aren’t people whose identity intersects with multiple forms of marginalization who experience silencing tactics far worse than having to pick a different song from their extensive library…for a given venue. Faux wokeness is nothing new in Rhapsody’s world. The world is full of cishet, white guys who think enlightenment is castigating the "drunk uncle” bigots and then proceeding with absolute identical treatment regardless of history, institutional levers of power, or the socio/political power differentials. Exactly the sort of people who think the “real” problem is that they can’t say whatever they want in other groups’ safe spaces. 

Dealing with the disappointment that an artistic and creative favorite turns out to be kind of a “dudebro” was hard, but the worst thing for Rhapsody was realizing that she had to be silent. She had to just “grey rock” this guy and let him blow up her phone with his “it’s tough to be a cishet, white guy” complaints…and then, without rebuttal, go about her day. 

She realized she couldn’t point out his behavior was pretty entitled. She couldn’t defend the position of the venue to keep things safe for marginalized communities. She couldn’t explain why a token friend who thought a song was okay might not be a the slambangingest judge for the whole community, nor their opinion a good criteria for allowing it at a venue . And as uncomfortable as that was, she realized that she had to be silent because anything she said was going to make the interaction get even worse. She had to be the bigger person. She had to not take it personally. She had to walk away and not talk about how she really felt.

Rhapsody has a history that makes her sensitive to abuse—particularly from narcissists. And in that moment, she realized that she was having the same reaction to Brad as she would from realizing someone was a narcissist. A deep, prevalent frustration that the best that could be achieved was walking away and “being the bigger person,” an unfortunate soft euphemism for ignoring all grievances because bringing them up will make things worse.

But the analogy between emotional abuse, particularly narcissistic abuse, and privilege is sort of a flash epiphany. Once you see it, it’s like the smudge on a movie theater screen—you probably won’t unsee it.

There could hardly be a more perfect parallel to the checklist of what characterizes a narcissist’s grandiose sense of self-importance (or the deep insecurity of covert narcissism) than can be seen in what we call privilege. Whether spoken aloud by the unapologetic racist/misogynist/transphobe/homophobe/etc…or denied vehemently while clung to in the form of hypocritical double standards, holding the worldview of superiority, entitlement, denial of empathy to some groups while demanding it for themselves, being exploitative of others while being hypersensitive to anything perceived as unfair regarding themselves, insisting all advantages have been earned despite clear evidence to the contrary, and presuming anyone who wants a fair playing field is merely envious of their success. 

We can even see more parallels of narcissistic things like wanting to be the center of attention when white men insist that any media that doesn’t feature them is a terrible trend of “forced diversity” (even though their ongoing hegemony is a simple matter of demonstrable fact). It shows up in haughty behaviors (often ostensibly linked to “culture” but somehow managing to target everyone who isn’t at the top of the social hierarchy regardless of their culture). All of these characterizations of narcissism are ubiquitous staples of privilege.

And then, of course, there’s the gaslighting. (“Oh, that wasn’t REALLY racism/sexism/transphobia.” “There isn’t a bigoted bone in our bodies—this is really about [adjacent issue]”) Everywhere you look, marginalized communities are being told they aren’t really marginalized and that every rock-solid piece of evidence they proffer up has some other explanation or is only ever the behavior of a few bad apples and not a systematic, systemic problem that should be actively confronted by those who benefit from it.

That didn't happen.

And if it did, it wasn't that bad.

And if it was, that's not a big deal.

And if it is, that's not my fault.

And if it was, I didn't mean it.

And if I did...

You deserved it.

This is a poem called “The Narcissist’s Prayer” (I’m trying to find attribution if you know it.) But it could just as easily be called “The Privilege Playbook”. This is the exact order of the scripts used when telling people that their lived experiences of oppression and marginalization aren’t real/that bad/anyone’s fault but their own. First, deny that privilege and marginalization even exist. Then, insist it's not really a big deal and that someone is just "looking for reasons to be offended." And then, deny complicity because "not all X." Then, fall back on their own pure and unbigoted intentions (over systemic and systematic impact). And if all that fails, blame the people for their own lack of progress because of the "tone" of how they express their injustice. "I might actually care about this if people would just protest more nicely/more quietly/more ignorably."

Also, these cishet, white dudes (clueless or deliberate) are constantly doing exactly the things they accuse others of doing. Indoctrinating youth into a paradigm where their narratives are unquestioned.  Silencing speech. Authoritarianism. Violence. Not to mention statistically being most likely to follow and support a political party that considers itself the victim of the very things it is actually doing (like destabilizing free and fair elections) and justifies all manner of bad behavior by somehow convincing itself that the other side would be even worse. Of course, the truth—by any fair and consistent rubric being applied—is that it is really these folks who are doing all these things, and those they accuse of it rarely are—or are only doing so on a much more limited scope and/or as a reaction to their own mistreatment (like safe spaces). What it brings to mind immediately is how a narcissist is so self-absorbed that they can’t help projecting, and everything they think is happening goes through the filter of what they themselves are doing. Or more succinctly: “Accusations from a narcissist are confessions.” Which seems to describe white dude indictments pretty accurately.

Obviously, it would be a profoundly damaging bit of ableist nonsense to say that every cishet, white male is a narcissist. But to notice that the way privilege behaves mirrors narcissism, and how the way it hurts mirrors narcissistic abuse is a highly useful observation. The way privilege reaches out and changes narratives, won’t accept blame, attacks anyone who points out that they are being hurt by its behaviors, accuses others of what it is doing, and cannot seem to muster empathy gives us a roadmap for what to expect. 

Unfortunately, this insight is not quite as useful on the macro level as it can be on the interpersonal one. We can use the D.E.E.P. method to keep ourselves safe from an individual. (Don’t Defend, don’t Engage, don’t Explain, and don’t Personalize—all these things only make the interaction worse.) It’s considerably harder to simply work around or “grey rock” the group that is running most of the institutions. We can’t go “no contact” on our own culture or grey rock our country. (Although, if you’re paying close attention, this is precisely what safe spaces are trying to do, why they’re so important, and why letting privileged people opine on the manner in which such spaces stay safe is such an epic shit-crumpet move.) And of course, a society can’t be diagnosed with a disorder in the sense that a trained psychologist [and ONLY a trained psychologist] can diagnose an individual with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

But in terms of how to contextualize what is happening, how to predict what will happen next, and how to deal with individuals who are not actively challenging their privilege every day, some basic understanding of the narcissist playbook will yield (time and time again) extremely useful results.

Bigotmagnification

So when a hawk drops dead of pesticides or a tuna dies of mercury, it's not because they found a big ol bowl of pesticide or mercury and said "That looks fucking TASTY!"

It's called biomagnification.

Tiny amounts of toxins start to concentrate the further up you go in the food chain. The watershed forms a plume, the grass that drinks the water is okay but has a little, the mice that eat the grass and drink the water are mostly okay, but have a little more, the snakes that eat the mice (and drink the water) are usually okay, but have a little more, but the raptors that eat the snakes (and drink the water) get so much from the effect of biomagnification that it's toxic.

The thing is, the animal at the apex of that food web did not INTEND to eat toxins. It didn't wake up thinking "I sure would love some fucking petroleum based pesticides on this fine afternoon!"  And if you could ask them about it, they would just say "Wait...poison? I never ate poison. All I ever ate was snakes." (And that would be true.)

Folks who care about social issues should probably invest in understanding this CONCEPT particularly in light of the active disinformation that is no doubt going to find fecund soil in misogyny, racism, homophobia and plenty of splash damage. It doesn't take one person actively, intentionally being hostile to a marginalized group to create a critically toxic environment of bigotry. They don't have to knowingly be partaking of misogyny or racism or transantagonism or homophobia or any other forms of bigotry to be getting a toxic dose every day.

The news doesn't just get beamed into your brain in fact form. It goes through multiple layers of filters first. A society with largely unexamined double standards, a media with a bottom line that runs stories it knows will sell just a LITTLE bit more, journalists who haven't examined the way they've always written about things and write just a LITTLE bit differently about certain groups than cis-het white men, a social media fueled by the content of friends and friends of friends––some of whom have some thoughts they don't talk about at parties. A few friends who are just a bit quiet in the face of bigotry, a little bit slower to decide some act of sexism or racism "counts," and a little quicker to tone police or demand nuance and empathy when systematic institutions are in play.

At each level there is bigotmagnification for what information ever even REACHES us. We're swimming in an ecosystem where we cannot consume anything that hasn't been tainted. We can gorge ourselves on a poisoned diet without ever intending to consume that toxicity if we don't question the sources and filter and refuse to consume the worst of it. And if we're not careful to filter and purify what we consume first, we will see the world through that double standard and walk out in the world magnifying it further, filled with poison, and filling the world with poison without ever intending it.

And just so you know, there are absolutely people knowingly, consciously, deliberately pouring poison into our watersheds.

I've Seen The Preview: I Don't Need to Hear Your Shitty Argument

Ending of the movie on cover.

What do shitty arguments have in common with crappy movie trailers?

Only everything.

When I went to see Bumblebee, there was a trailer for A Dog's Way Home, which seems to pretty much be Lassie Come Home for a new generation. As you watch the trailer for A Dog's Way Home, it becomes obvious that you just saw the entire movie. I mean there might be a scene that you aren't able to predict exactly, but all the major beats are right there in the preview. Even the part where the dog and the human are reunited at the end is in the trailer.

These kinds of trailers are not unusual. You watch them and it's really clear that you don't need to see the movie. You've seen the whole thing. You already know how it is going to go.

Arguing with Dudebros and SQuiD's (status quo defenders) about social issues is very similar. They are, from the moment they appear, the living embodiment of the latest studies that raised upper forebrains, logic, rationality, and thinking are not created to find truth, but to win arguments. And they want, more than anything else in the world, to win.

They often equate the unwillingness to debate them so with an inability, but in reality, just like that movie, you just don't NEED to see this one out. They think they are original, edgy, vital, fresh to death, but what they really are is an edgelord clone with a all-too predictable stream of clichés spewing out. From the first moment they reveal their "Debate me!" position or demand proof of things like "inequality exists," you already know pretty much exactly how it's going to go.

Not a lot of variety.

First, they demand proof! Whatever it is, they will demand that it be proven. It's a very popular strategy because it mimics good faith skepticism, and claims require evidence. Here's the punchline though: you're NEVER going to prove it to these people. Maybe inequality existed once, but we're past all that now. (It's always, mysteriously, ten years ago that this great shift occurred––even if they themselves age a year, it doesn't become eleven years ago, but still ten).  If you give them statistics, they argue the narrative. If you give them the narrative, they question the statistics. If you give them both, they question the source as reliable. If you give them an impeccable source with pie charts and graphs and hundreds of studies that they can't possibly argue, they pontificate some heretofore unexamined X factor like they are suddenly experts on the subject who are seeing a flaw in the data. They work tirelessly to grind the argument into dozens, maybe hundreds of comments just dealing with something like the very existence of racism or sexism, and turn the entire ordeal of attempting to educate into a huge emotional labor engine trying to get them to acknowledge not only the value of a person's ability to relay their own lived experience, but something that literally all evidence points to.

They twist the institutional forces of bigotry into the false equivalency of someone with prejudice. ("I can name a white person who once got called a honkey before being punched, so obviously the entirety of systematic and systemic racism is a myth.")

And then they will claim that equalism/egalitarianism/humanism should be the real goal (because they care about social issues and equality, but only so long as no specific group gets to talk about how inequality affects them in particular), as if the only thing holding them back from being the champion of oppression everywhere is a branding issue, and not in any way a silencing tactic.

Come on guys! They changed the name to "egalitarianism."
That's what we were waiting for, and now
we totally give a shit about pay inequality for women!

And then they will attack the person making the claim for anything they have ever done that seems questionable as if it justifies the bigotry they have experienced and/or insinuate (or outright claim) they are faking it for attention or money.

And then they will claim that the efforts to name and shame the social issue (sexism for example) are just as bad as the bigotry itself. Because they can remember a time a woman was mean to them for holding the door open or something.

And then they will attempt a fallacy of relative privation because someone somewhere has it worse.

And perhaps they may even attempt a rousing round of "That's Just How Humans Are." The game where it's apparently not ever worth pointing out or working against fundamental inequality because at the end of the day, humans just suck. (That 99% of people who say this happens to be in the group that benefits from this fundamental human suckage is surely just coincidence.)

The cleverer versions of these folks will, at each step of the way, first try Just Asking Questions and imply that their genuine skepticism is above reproach. Any emotion that meets their non-stop questions it (be it frustration, anger, or anything else) is simply evidence that it's all an emotional reaction, worthy only of scorn.

At some point, it is likely they will say that they would listen (or would have listened) if everyone had been a whole lot nicer to them. They may say this despite their own inability to remain even remotely civil because of course THEY were being "attacked" and accused of not getting it and not to mention not a few unkind words as regard to their character, and of course, that is the real crime––their feelings––rather than the implication that entire groups of people are making shit up.

For many enacting this carefully choreographed dance on some sort of open forum or multi-person venue, the entire time they will conveniently miss the logical and careful arguments they claim to be interested in by those who carefully, logically, and OH SO NICELY refute their points, they will respond mostly to the emotional arguments, which they find easiest to attack.

Of course, every one of these is one type or another of fallacy––from a burden of proof fallacy (dismissing something on the basis that it hasn't been proven beyond all doubt is a part of that fallacy), to Tu Quoque, to Argument Ad Absurdum and more.  Honestly it would take a week and change of a critical thinking class to break them all down.

Ironically, about 90% of these people would recognize these fallacies if they were being told to prove vaccines work or to prove that the earth is round. 

And then....the best part of all. The climax of our story––which, just like Free Willy, you already know....

The ghosting.

If all of this somehow ends in inescapably pinioning the person, they simply disappear. Like a ninja with a smoke pellet, they must go, or it is time for work, or their spouse is calling, or maybe....JUST MAYBE they quite appreciate the rousing intellectual stimulation you have provided them purely as a diversion and thought experiment, possibly with a side of thanking the person who managed to explain the issue in the most detached way possible (weaponizing their discipline against everyone else who had the temerity to get frustrated).

And then the next time you see them they have returned all the way back to "Prove to me this exists at all." They didn't learn. They didn't grow. It was all designed to make sure everyone knew that the "price" of disrupting the status quo would be endless iterations of the same argument...again and again and again and....

Of course, at any point during all of this, should anyone give up and assume this agent is not operating in the most irreproachable of best faith to be educated OH so gently, it is because they CAN'T. It is because this social issue doesn't really exist. It is because this claim has no evidence. The whole thing is made up and run by the group's emotions.

The thing is, from the moment most of us who butt up against this sort of motivated skepticism every day recognize that someone is stubbornly NOT GETTING IT, we don't need to see the whole movie. We've seen the preview with the entire thing. We've watched the earlier version. We know exactly what's going to happen. As amazing and intellectual and original as these people think they are, the best most people can do with their time is go watch something else.

How Video Games Made Me A Better Person

First, a disclaimer: I have a lot of privilege. I code as white (ethnically I'm from a group that has had its whiteness revoked and been the target of genocides, but most people don't know that unless I tell them). I'm a guy (kinda). I'm not straight but I have spent most of my life under the umbrella of straight privilege. Raised middle class, although I'm now poor on paper. Able-bodied except for some neurodivergence. Those marginalized statuses I have, you probably couldn't tell by looking at me, so I pass, out in the world. These experiences are from my point of view, and they may be somewhat sophistic to people who experience marginalization and systematic oppression every day.

I tend to be a bit outspoken when it comes to social justice issues. When I say "tend to" and "a bit," you understand that I mean most of my friends (even those who agree with me) have gone through at least one or two moments on Facebook where they said, "Chris, please shut up. Please for the love of God, just stop posting. Just for a few minutes. Just this once. Please!"

From time to time, however, someone manages to pin me down for a lunch date or corners me at a party where I'm being reserved, shy, and not at all like my online persona, and they often end up wondering about how I came to care so much about the issues I talk so much about. Formative experiences about speaking out against injustice involve my mom, and no small amount of my bravery can be attributed to my idolization of Luke Skywalker. But those experiences set a tone. They laid the foundation for wanting to be morally good. They don't themselves help me parse the thicket of discourse to determine what the right thing is.

That comes from video games.

When I was young, video games were pretty simple. The first game I ever played involved a square picking up an arrow to go look for a chalice, and my favorite game required you to run to the right until you died three times. (You could run to the left, but the crocodiles were easier to jump going right.) And of course there was an inexplicable hostility that a certain airplane had for the river it was raiding.

Boss fight. Circa 1979.
Shit just got real, yo.

As I grew up, video games got better and their objectives improved. There was plenty of rescuing princesses, of course, and stopping alien brains, and terrorist organizations who apparently had the money to build giant fighting mecha but didn't think to put some motion detectors outside their death fortresses, but we also started to see more complex machinations. Villains didn't always just twirl their mustaches or go by names like Sinistar–some of them even thought they were the good guy.

As we reached the turn of the century, and video games began to come into their own as a complex and nuanced art form, we gamers began to take on the avatar mantle of heroes in much more complicated dramas. Sometimes we were on the wrong side when we started out. Sometimes the villains lied. Sometimes complicated political dramas were unfolding with no moral protagonist.
Of course, these days, in video games, we can even choose to be complete epic seepage dripping assholes, adding a whole new layer of choice and complexity to the journey of the gamer.

Like COMPLETE seepage dripping assholes.

And as weird as it might sound, all this nuance and flexibility has helped me to be a better person. We can all figure out how to be a good guy when evil aliens show up to destroy Earth. We can all make the "right" choice when some eight-foot-tall fucking BDSM turtle kidnaps a woman who's begging for help.  But as things get more complicated, and everyone is just looking out for their own interests, it becomes a little tougher to figure out whose side of the story to listen to.

That's where video games come in.

Imagine you fired up a video game and entered in the starting city of a modern (yet steampunk because steampunk is awesome) town. You're probably going to talk to a bunch of people and find out what's going on because you've played enough video games to know that's what you do. And unless you're very impatient, you will probably start by talking to everyone. You won't skip the "Falcons" group and only ever talk to the "Razorbacks." They've all got stories. You won't ignore someone who lives in the bad part of town. You know (as any good gamer knows) that there may be vital information in the hands of basically anyone.

You don't value any stories more than any others.

Now imagine the first people you talk to are kind of bitter and mean. They treat you with some hostility. They don't trust you. They don't like you. But they do talk to you, and when they do, they tell you of terrible things happening to them from the government. Every single one of them has a story about how their experience isn't fair. They don't get enough steam for their punks in their part of town. They are powerless. Poor. If any of them protest their unfair conditions, they are often the subjects of violence. This isn't just a coincidence either. They aren't randomly the poor people. They are HELD DOWN because of some immutable factor of their birth. They may even ask you to help them. They have definite perceptions about the injustice in which they exist. They say it is all around and permeates their lives. Their ancestors were very badly treated, and even though things are better, they still aren't equal.

As you move on, you discover a second group. They are much nicer and friendlier. They like you. They treat you well. They flirt with you (unlocking romance options far more easily). This group lives in a better part of town. They are, by and large, richer and much more powerful. They have all the steam they need and their punks are well stocked. Almost everyone on the TV shows is from the second group and they control the voice that comes over the city-wide PA system telling everyone what a fine equality-loving society they all live in. Almost everyone in political power is from the second group. Almost every notable person in this city's history seems to be from the second group.

Group Two will tell you at length about how the first group is making things up. Sure, they were an unfair society long ago in the before time, but that's all ancient history (the ancient history of one generation ago). Now it's laughable that things aren't totally equitable. Certainly there aren't any deep-seated inequalities to overcome.

They tell you that the first group just wants to put them down. The first group is lazy. The first group won't work to pull themselves up. They say the first group is simply playing the victim because of the benefits they hope to get from pity. In some cases they acknowledge that some *VERY MINOR* injustice still exists, in a detached and intellectual way, but they insist that it is self correcting, often dismiss specific claims of Group One, and firmly believe that any attempts by the first group to right the injustice are "far far worse than the inequity itself." They really discourage you from listening to the first group's stories. Not overtly, of course––at least not at first––but by explaining that they are better able to see injustice than group one, and there isn't any. Of course, if you keep talking to group one, they'll stop being so nice, stop flirting with you. Stop treating you so well...

Laws exist that make it extremely difficult for the people in Group One to advance themselves into the worlds of Group Two (though technically it is possible and a few have done it to much fanfare and are often touted as evidence that everything is better now). Further, a few people in Group Two are quite overt about how they are superior and should be in a better position. They blame most of the Group One's troubles on the actions, culture, behaviors of Group One, often suggesting that if they would just be less hostile, work harder, and accept their lot, they would probably be in a better situation. There are many theories about why the first group is disadvantaged and they are all discussed by the second group with a sort of intellectual detachedness. Many in Group Two talk at length about what they would do to have better lives if they were in Group One.

It is considered uncouth to voice the opinion openly and directly that Group One is inferior, but when it happens (and it seems to strangely often), such opinions are merely considered impolite and part of living in a free society where people can say what they want. They are not immediately censured and aggressively repudiated in the same way as Group One's cries of injustice are....always. Still, it seems that in whispers and through double speak, Group Two is really allowed to speak as horribly as they want about Group One.

Group Two has nothing to gain and everything to lose from even the acknowledgement of the injustice. Group Two's elite enjoy a vast and inexhaustible supply of cheap labor from Group One. And you even discover that there are actual laws and regulations (on top of social consequence and effect) that make it much much harder for anyone from Group One to rise up. Plus Group One is secretly treated worse in virtually every situation––financing, employment, payment...you name it. And Group Two is blaming them for bad things that have begun to happen and looking to make life even worse for them.

Now here is my question to you as a gamer.

Would you, playing this game, have even the SLIGHTEST difficulty realizing what was going on in this scenario? Would anyone not know which group to support to get the "good" ending and which would get the "evil" ending?

Video games helped me to realize that most people look around our world from the inside. We've been here our whole lives. We're used to it. We're desensitized. WE ARE THE NPC's! We are the status quo. But as soon as we look at our world from the perspective of someone who just turned the game on five minutes ago, it becomes shockingly, absurdly, spectacularly easy to realize what is really going on.

When we take the time to listen to the stories of different people, as we would if we were walking around a game world trying to figure out what was going on (and instead of listening to who was in power), we immediately get a sense that our world is not just haphazardly and randomly unfair, but is systematically oppressive. Instead of letting the group in charge tell us that it's fair or as fair as it can be or any unfairness is probably the fault of those suffering, we can go and get the stories from the people themselves and listen to them. The minute we listen to everyone as if they have something vital and important to tell us (and they do) about this world, the truth is laid bare. When we value all the stories around us as equal instead of letting those in power explain away inequality it is almost comical how apparent the injustices are.

In my world (as distressingly unsteampunk as it is) I have a choice to listen to one group–the group in power (a largely male, white, heterosexual, able-bodied, cis group)–who insists that nothing is really wrong that couldn't be fixed if people would just try harder instead of complaining. Or I can seek out other voices and other narratives and let the people best equipped to describe their own situations describe it for themselves. Women who've experienced harassment and sexism. People of color who've experienced racism and xenophobia. Disabled people who've found difficulty accessing the same services as the able-bodied. Gender-variant folks who have a world of difficulties that cis folks do not. I can find those folks and I can listen to their stories and see that they paint a very VERY different picture than those overwhelming the mainstream. And once I have bothered to listen to the stories of those who are not in control of the narrative–and treated those stories as equal to the ones who are–it's only a matter of deciding whether I want to be Luke Skywalker or a seeping asshole.

Duck Shaped Bigotry

You know, if you pour liquid into a shaped glass, it takes on the shape of the glass, but that doesn't actually make it that shape. (Shatter the glass and it would flow everywhere.) So if you had water in, say, a duck-shaped decanter, it would still be water. It would not be a duck, or even *actually* duck shaped itself. It's just held into the shape of a duck temporarily.

Bigotry is the same way.

People pour it into containers (like "economic anxieties" or "deep concerns about electronic security" or "children's safety") so that it looks like something other than racism or misogyny or homophobia or transphobia–and then they claim it is whatever shape it's taking at the moment.

It's not that those things aren't real. (Real ducks DO exist.) It's just that that's not what the bigotry really is, even if it's being held in that shape.

"That?" they gasp, clutching their pearls. "That's not bigotry! That's a DUCK. My goodness how could you possibly accuse that of being bigotry! You are the real bigot here trying to impugn my duck as anything other than absolutely ducky!"

And then they set about giving their duck a name like Howard and printing it out a little birth certificate from the farm and equipping it with galoshes and rain gear and buying it a little bed and adding feathers to it. But "duck" is still just the shape that is holding together what's inside–and that is their bigotry. Even years later when they can barely remember it's not really a duck or when they give it to their children with strict orders that they must never let anyone question its duckhood, examine it too closely, or themselves think too hard about what is sloshing around inside....

....even then, it is still not actually a duck.

On "Crappy" Social Justice Teachers

Today's narrative to challenge is the one about the terrible social justice teacher. You know, the toxic ne'er do well who calls everybody problematic and crushes the perfectly innocent question of that pure hearted would-be ally and drives them away from social justice forever.

"How can I learn if you won't teach me?"

"The problem with social justice is that it won't educate newcomers."

"You keep chasing off people who don't already have perfect knowledge of how to behave."

"You're not doing your cause any favors to be the gatekeepers of your concepts."

Sound familiar?

Most people who utter these phrases, don't realize how much of a power dynamic they just enacted. To them it makes sense that the minute they want to help, they should get as much encouragement as possible from those they are trying to help.

Usually they do. Most people who approach social justice with a good faith curiosity find no end of folks willing to help them out with concepts, explain terms, share experiences. Most of the talks, forums, articles, and posts about social justice happen at what they call the "101 level" (or the very basics of teaching. Outside of perhaps an actual school, you probably haven't met a group more willing to put the genuinely curious in contact with resources that would help them or talk them through an idea.

The trouble comes when folks approach in bad faith. And the patterns surrounding this (dismissal, "just asking questions," concern trolling, devil's advocate) are so predictable and recognizable that it's easy to see them coming a mile away. The exasperated reaction to yet another status quo warrior challenging their ideas by JAQing off (just asking questions) is interpreted as an unwillingness to teach rather than as a host of seasoned vet teachers who are able to recognize an unwillingness to learn.

Of course the social justice community is a....community. It consists of lots of people of varying levels of patience, diplomacy, and skill with teaching. It consists of folks who have no interest in teaching and are just trying to get through the day and hope someone listens to them. It consists of spaces where teaching newcomers isn't the primary objective. It consists of spaces dedicated to those who have digested the first "tier" of concepts. It consists (as any community does) who are toxic. It consists of sub-communities with ideas of idealogical purity who chase others off. But applying those criticisms to the whole is one of the emblematic problems of stereotyping and hasty generalizations.

One can actually see this problem with this narrative show up if we take out the power dynamic.

If you walked into a calculus class to which you were enrolled and doing quite well, and the teacher started talking about derivatives for the first time, but they didn't teach you about them or write them down, but rather just said that derivatives would be on the test and you raised your hand and asked what they were and THEN the teacher screamed at you, "I don't have time to teach you this. You'll have to educate yourself...."

That would be shitty teaching.

But privileged people complaining that every space within the world of social justice is not stopping to teach them the minute they have a basic question, even if the others are in the middle of a conversation, in a space that is not designed for basic education is a power dynamic. Feeling entitled to be gently taught about marginalization by the very people who are marginalized is a power dynamic.

Here is more accurate behavior for this analogy:

• Telling the calculus teacher that even though you agree with the importance of numbers in theory, you wouldn't go much beyond algebra and whole basis of advanced mathematics is going "too far" since you do not understand irrational numbers and have personally never experienced them in your life.
• Insulting everyone who "wastes their time" attempting to understand advanced mathematics. (Basically the entire class.)
• Dismissing (even mocking) any attempts to explain irrational numbers, how they work, and how math knows they're there. 
• Refusing to simply sit down and listen even though the class is clearly too advanced for you.
• Ignoring multiple people who have been doing advanced mathematics for years.
• Being in a class you're not enrolled in and clearly don't have the foundational knowledge to grasp, but also refusing to sit quietly, instead asking demanding questions about concepts covered three or four years earlier in a typical math curriculum.
• Not complying when asked to hold questions about basic concepts until the end, come to office hours, or avail yourself of tutoring. Demanding that a lack of an answer means there isn't one.
• Scoffing when being given quick resources (like trig textbooks), or having it suggested to you that you find a class that better suits you, so that the class can return to what it was doing.
• Insisting that because there was no gate at the college parking lot or security that stopped you or lock on the door to the class that you are absolutely entitled to be in the space, it is "public," and it is ridiculous to suggest that you shouldn't be able to behave in whatever way you want, no matter how disruptive.
• Bursting in on the math research team, who are actually just doing math because they're mathematicians and that's their lives, and demanding that they teach you because anyone who does math has to be willing to teach you....at any time.
• Deciding that the differential equations class you have audited should actually be about geometry, walking up to the front and beginning to run a parallel class in geometric proofs, shouting over the teacher, and ignoring all instructions to stop (again, until escorted out by security).
• Approaching instructors when they're at home or at the grocery store and continuing to demand that they educate you right then...for free. 
• Laughing at the idea that someone should get paid to personally and gently walk you through these concepts or that you should have even the slightest responsibility in your own educational process.
• Literally resisting the ideas by trying to find some flaw in the teaching.
• Suggesting that any emotion displayed by the instructor (particularly passion for the subject) means that math is wrong.
• Informing everyone in the classroom that they should be FUCKING GRATEFUL that you're trying to learn this "math stuff" at all, and that if they're going to convince the world math is important, they're going to need you.
• Insist that the difficulty in upper math courses isn't doing the discipline any favors.
• Refusing to accept basic concepts (even on an intellectual level) because you believe it will call into question the way you've been doing math all these years. And you don't like the idea of that.
• Ignoring pretty much everything you're told no matter how often you're told it and by how many teachers and by how many patient classmates and then when the first person who gets exasperated at you loses their patience you blame math and the entire math department for being a terrible educators.
• Claiming that your civil rights had been infringed when security finally escorts you out.
  
• And of course before you did any of this–ANY OF IT–you walked past fifteen different lower level math classes that were talking about the concepts you are having trouble with and that had openings in their roster with instructors who would have been delighted to take you on at your current level of understanding. You ignored every single one of them as well as the wealth of information available online or in books to someone who is genuinely curious about learning more advanced mathematics. And instead you went into a space that was beyond you, ground the whole thing to a halt, and made it about immediately alleviating your ignorance.
• And when it is all said and done, you claim that mathematics has a real problem with bad gatekeepers and indecipherable jargon, and if they wanted more mathematicians, they should be nicer to people who just want to learn.

In these contexts would anybody think that a teacher who got fed up, got angry, asked this person to leave, asked this person to be quiet if they were going to stay, asked this person to avail themselves of more basic information, or asked them to take a proactive hand in their own education were REALLY a "shitty" teacher?

Or is the entitled demand for an immediate, gentle education another form of privilege and entitlement that is shown to be ridiculous in any other power dynamic.

[Mandatory disclaimer: Yes there are people in the 101 levels of activism who have no business being there (just like there are teachers who have no business being teachers). They rage at a wrong move, jump to basically abusive levels of hostility, shut down any hope of actual communication or learning, and use some of the vocabulary of social justice to be harmful. However, most of the time this is not the case. People who aren't good at teaching are not TRYING to do 101. What they're trying to do is have a fucking conversation about their lives without some rando showing up and challenging their interpretation of their own lived experiences.]

Not All Assholes Are Lawyers

There's this joke.

A guy walks into a bar and says "All lawyers are assholes." Down at the end of the bar someone says "Hey, that's not fair." The first person says "What, are you a lawyer?" "No," the second guy says. "I'm an asshole."

(pause for big laffs--and hope you never need legal council)

Now as you come down from the euphoria of laughing harder than you probably have in years (perhaps even your whole life) consider the following:

This joke is useful to keep in mind analogously when blaming bigotry and especially and violence on mental illness.

I know we would all prefer to live in a world where sane people simply don't go on killing sprees or hate someone because they're Black, and where we can avoid the uncomfortable feelings that our fellow man could be so heinous without also being "broken" (and what is probably really niggling at our sense of well being: that WE could be so heinous under the right circumstances).

However mental illness is not the root of all evil and people who are mentally ill struggle enough without the stigma that it is. Most mentally ill people never hurt anyone physically. They are more likely to be victims of violent crime than perpetrate it, and are more likely to hurt themselves than anyone else. Finding that some mentally ill people are violent is as meaningful as finding that some dentists are violent. It is not the X-factor, and blaming the correlation deepens the stigma and sweeps the real causal factors under the rug.

Besides, in the end, arm-chair diagnosing those who do something depraved is not only intellectually bankrupt. It is often, simply wrong. People who commit atrocities are found to be sane over and over again.

Allies Are Like Sports Fans

Image description: Soccer stadium with a full
pyrotechnics show going on.

Being a social justice ally is a lot like being a fan of a sports team.

You’re there to support them, spend money on their merchandise, identify yourself as a supporter so that your team feels the love and the world knows you're there, cheer for them, talk them up to others, gush about why your team rocks to anyone interested in sports (and maybe a few who aren't), and jump in if someone's talking trash about your team (or your sport). You bring a megaphone and a big foam #1 glove, and you use the megaphone to lead the cheers you have been taught and that the team likes to hear. And maybe if you're good at what you do, you lead the bleachers in a cheer or two and get a few seconds of cheering on the JumboTron.

But you're not part of the team. You don't go to practices. You don’t get your name on the roster. If they wins or loses, you're going to your normal job on Monday. If you're wearing a jersey, it's got someone else's name on it. You don't take that megaphone, turn it full blast and start offering your own opinion to the crowd about what the team could be doing differently because you're just really concerned about how they're doing this season. You don't hang out in the locker room or sit down with the MVP and tell them you really know a lot better about the sport they're playing than they do and here's what they need to do. You aren't invited to the strategy sessions. Because you aren't the focus.

Also, if someone from the team is doing a press conference, you don't run up and steal the microphone to talk about how the team's playing has made you feel.

Let's Make Firefly About Star Wars

Firefly promotional poster with all the characters 

An extended geeky metaphor:  

Imagine that every time you try to have a conversation about Firefly, I show up and talk about Star Wars. You bring up the laser in the brothel episode, I talk about the new lightsaber cross-guard. Talk about Serenity the movie, I bring up the timeline of Episode 8. Fox canceling mid-season? That's not going to happen with Star Wars because of the Disney merger (which you think is great because....). The way canon psychics didn't get developed in the show. I talk about Force powers and midichlorians.

When you finally point out that you're actually talking about Firefly right now--not Star Wars, and that I am derailing a conversation in the middle of a Browncoat's Ball, I claim that you obviously don't LIKE Star Wars, and have no real interest in the broader arc of modern science fiction as a whole–even though both those statements are patently false (and in fact, you can probably better contextualize how Star Wars fits into the Science Fiction milieu than I can). You're a huge fan of science fiction, love Star Wars, and discuss at length how Star Wars's mainstream acceptance has brought more acceptability to a genre that was considered fringe.

But it is patently obvious that what I really care about is not the "science fiction milieu" but really just making everything about Star Wars.

But Star Wars is better, I claim! Everyone has heard of Star Wars. Star Wars wasn't cancelled in the middle of its only season. No one even knows all the characters or actors in Firefly. I can't even be bothered to learn what Firefly has to do with that vampire show from the 90s. Firefly fans are just hanging on to something that's over and alienating younger fans.

No matter where you go or who you're talking to, there I am (or someone like me) to derail your Firefly talk into Star Wars. It's not enough to say "You're right, Star Wars is awesome" and go back to talking about Firefly. I demand that the subject be changed. I demand that you stop talking about Firefly. I derail every single conversation. And I fricken show up EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

This is called derailing.

It's not wrong. It's not that it's not a good conversation to have. It may even fit in to a broader point if it's brought up in a way that fits into a broader point. It's just not the actual conversation that's going on, and insisting it change brings a lot of stop energy to what is currently on the table. And it's actually quite a bit easier than most people think to tell that THIS IS THE GOAL of derailing.

Derailing is actually about forcing a topic change to a new issue. Whether it's bringing up "all lives matter" in response to BlackLivesMatter or "men suffer too" when discussing women's issues. It's not that these things are important. In fact they are probably well considered by the folks in question. It's not that they can't be brought up in a compatible way. ("As a man who has been raped, I wouldn't wish this on anyone, and consent is important.") It's that the way it is brought up is explicitly intended as a counterpoint. ("Men get raped too, ya know!") At worst it's a calculated attempt to keep the focus on the subject of social supremacy. But even at best it's just a clueless and rude invasion into a conversation that's about something else entirely.

The Really Dangerous Intersection

Image description: Sign that says Dangerous Intersections Ahead

There's a really dangerous intersection near my house. I have to be careful when I'm walking with The Contrarian. It's a one way turn from a freeway offramp, so drivers often only look left to see if there's oncoming traffic before turning. If I'm coming from my house (coming from their left), they usually see me without any problem, but if I'm walking towards home (from the right) they often don't bother looking–they glance to see if there's oncoming traffic and then dart out, never thinking that there could be a pedestrian coming from the other direction. Every couple of days, drivers whip out without even seeing me and if I'd kept walking, I would have been hit. I try to make sure I have eye contact before proceeding. There was a near miss yesterday when a driver– 

DRA: Not all drivers are like that. I'm not like that.

Where did you come from? I'm in the middle of writing a post. Excuse me. 

Anyway, I have to keep vigilant for these drivers because they don't look both ways–

DRA: Not all drivers do that. You can't just make sweeping generalizations.

Okay, I don't know what you're doing here, but you're kind of derailing my point. Enough drivers are like that to make being a pedestrian very dangerous–especially when they don't think to look out for our safety.

DRA: What you are saying impugns all drivers, and we need to stop painting them all with the same brush. Not all drivers are so careless.

Yes, but all pedestrians are in danger and have to be careful of drivers who aren't.

DRA: But what you said was about all drivers. ALL drivers are not dangerous drivers, this is about drivers. Because you are generalizing in a way that hurts me.

Actually this is about me almost getting hit.

DRA: By ONE driver. ONE bad apple.

Yes, but this happens all the time. I am constantly being endangered by drivers. I don't know which drivers are going to be the safe ones and which ones are going to not pay attention at a one way turn.

DRA: Not me though. This is about all the good drivers out there you're hurting and offending with your generalizations. I take umbrage with you painting "drivers" with the same brush.

This is not about drivers. This is about how dangerous it is to be a pedestrian. I'm sure there are great drivers, but enough of them are dangerous that my safety becomes an issue almost daily.

DRA: You know drivers probably wouldn't almost hit you if you wore something more visible. Maybe you should carry a whistle to let them know you're there. Maybe if you walked in pairs you would be easier to spot.

Or maybe they should look both ways because that's like the first thing you learn in driving school.

DRA: I always look both ways. The idea of someone not looking both ways makes me violent. I want to hurt those drivers.

Great. Then this is not about you.

DRA: It is about me because I'm a driver. You said "DRIVERS" don't look both ways. Not all of us are like that. Most of us look both ways. Whoever allegedly almost hit you is probably a good driver too. They spend their whole lives making safe turns and now you want to assassinate their character because they didn't think one turn all the way through?

I'm not assassinating anything. They almost hit a baby. And it happens EVERY FUCKING DAY.

DRA: So you say. I'm sorry, but I can't really even listen to this without getting the other side of the story. Well meaning drivers who (maybe) make an innocent mistake deserve my rational impartiality.

The other side of the story? What other side of the story?

DRA: How do I know you didn't make one of those "go ahead" gestures, and then regretted it after the fact.

What? Are you trying to be horrid? I'm telling you I was almost hit and that it happens a lot.

DRA: But you're fine. Be thankful it wasn't worse. If you really don't want to get hit, you'll dodge the cars. When a legitimate hit is coming towards you, the reflexes have ways of shutting that down.

That's completely absurd. Pedestrians get killed all the time.

DRA: You're not doing your cause any favors by getting so upset. Look, I'm not saying you just want attention, but there are a lot of people who fraudulently report accidents–maybe for the insurance money, or maybe just for sympathy. How do I even know you're not one of those?

Why would I do that? My cause? What the fuck. I'm just telling you what happened to me.

DRA: How should I know? You pedestrians have your reasons. Did even you report this "terrible crime"?

The cops wouldn't care.

DRA: Convenient. Did anybody else see it happen?

Lots of people saw it. Nobody did anything. I don't know who any of them are, and they didn't stop to do anything about it.

DRA: Wow. The convenient hits just keep on coming. Pedestrians have been making up stories about dangerous drivers for a long time.

Pedestrians get killed by drivers all the time! How is that making anything up?

DRA: Sure, but those pedestrians... I mean they're near the road, wearing clothes that don't scream "get away." That's just the world we live in, and pedestrians need to be responsible for how cars might behave. You can't wear whatever you want and cross dangerous intersections and not expect that someone is going to drive without checking both ways. Drivers will be drivers. Have you even bothered to think about how traumatized the driver might be that they almost hit someone? 

Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me?

DRA: Trying to change the fundamental nature of drivers is too hard. They are what they are. You should focus on how to make sure pedestrians DON'T GET HIT. You can't just go around generalizing that all drivers are bad because you didn't bother to undergo a few basic safety precautions.

Yes, I fucking can! Get out of my post. Go away!

DRA: I don't see why you can't be reasonable about this. Pedestrians are always so hysterical about everything. What I'm going for here is EQUAL access to the road. I already can't drive my monster truck on their sidewalks without consequence, but they sure can come into my streets any time they want. You Pedestrian Safety Warriors and your anti-driver rhetoric are just trying to destroy good and decent drivers with your Pedestradry. I'm tired of your anti-driver, anti-car bigotry.

What????

DRA: And why aren't we talking about how often people on foot hurt cars. I mean they can key them or break their windows. Do you think it's another driver who steals a stereo systems. No. It's a person on foot. The struggle is real.

That has nothing to do with–

DRA: Wait you said this happens a lot? Why do you keep putting yourself in that position day after day.

What? You mean walking down the street? Because I'm not going to sit at home.

DRA: Honestly, you probably wanted to get hit. I mean, look at how much attention you're getting. I bet this blog isn't doing to badly based on the traffic you're getting from telling your.....story.

You need to leave.

DRA: Sounds like you could use a good collision honestly. I hope you get run over!

Get the fuck out of my post.

DRA: Look I'm sorry that you're misunderstanding me. See how emotional pedestrians are? And they're anti-driver bigots. 

LEAVE!!!!

#notalldrivers 

Repairing Cars! (Social Justice Metaphor)

The Contrarian really likes cars these days. He won't even go to bed without clutching a car in his hand. He squeals and screams "Kas! Kas!" every time one passes. He cries when I change his diaper unless I make the "Prrrrow!" noises of a pneumatic torque wrench.  His favorite movie? Cars. A close second? Cars 2.  (Which is a travesty.)   

So I think a lot about cars these days.  Here is a social justice metaphor about cars. (There were two, but the first one got long. I'll do the second one as a brunch post next week.)

Let's pretend you tell me that you don't like repairing cars....

You then proceed to tell me how difficult diagnostics on cars are, and the lengthy process you have to go through with every single vehicle to determine what is wrong with it. You list out dozens of problems that all have the same "symptoms" in a car, and tell me that often you can't even tell what system the issue is in. You discuss air flows and valves and seem pretty sure that the electrical system is primarily to start the car and run the lights and radio. You don't seem to be aware of computer chips or a computer's role in the car. Everything you are describing is analog and mechanical.

Pretty soon, I start to get the idea that you don't have the first clue about modern day car repair.  Like maybe you have an idea about what repairing cars was thirty years ago or more, but you don't even seem to have acknowledged OBD diagnostic systems (which have been standard in every car since the mid 90s and ubiquitous before that) to say nothing of the fact that computers are assisting every system in modern cars from brakes to fuel injection. 

Wait, the car actually knows what's wrong with it?
What foul sorcery is this????

And if you're only forty or so, and I'm pretty sure you weren't repairing cars before you could reach their pedals, it becomes pretty clear that you have absolutely no actual idea what you are talking about. Your knowledge of cars and car repair is based on something second hand that someone told you or you read. Or maybe you repaired a few really old cars once and you think that's what it's all about now.

It's not that I don't think you've ever repaired a car or know how they work. It's just painfully clear that you don't have the context for an actually informed opinion of what modern car repair is really about.

This is why when people invoke Dworkin or Greer in their critiques of feminism, my eyebrow insta-Spock-arches. If the only feminism they seem aware of is a bicycle/fish radicalized expression from the seventies, I start to wonder what their interaction with actual feminism has been. If they don't seem to know that NOW has led the social and political charge to have women added to the draft, or to include men's rape under the legal definition of rape. If someone invokes third wave trans exclusion or sex-work antagonism without being aware of what a "TERF" or a "SWERF" even is and why mainstream feminism tends to edge away from these positions. If they have no operant knowledge of what the term "white feminism" means or why it's seen as problematic or what intersectionality is and what problems with earlier forms of feminism it seeks to redress or how feminism has been front and center in challenging the way gender roles harm men too....

Suddenly I have a very different picture of what they actually know. I get the idea that they don't have the first clue about modern day feminism. Like maybe they have a vague idea of what it was like thirty years ago, but they don't seem to have acknowledged three decades or more of social progress and development or the different struggles that modern feminism has tried to tackle.

[For a metaphor within a metaphor, this would be like insisting video games are still at the Atari 2600 level of sophistication.]'

Video games are boring. All those squares for graphics aren't making me want to play them at all.
They aren't doing themselves any favors by making every game two player.
What? You think I haven't played a more recent game. HOW DARE YOU!

And if these people were BORN in the 70's, I doubt highly that they were engaging feminist thought in the second grade. Basically, it becomes pretty clear that they have absolutely no actual idea what they are talking about. Their knowledge of feminism is based on something second hand (probably from another opponent of feminism who doesn't really understand it either) they heard or read. Maybe they've read a few anachronistic excerpts and they think that's what it's still all about.

It's not that I don't think they've ever encountered feminist thought. It's just painfully clear that they don't have the context for an actually informed opinion of what modern feminism is really about.

And that ignorance of modernity makes an opinion hard to take seriously as informed or valuable....cars or feminism. 

The Nut Shot (Social Justice Metaphors)

Dear fellow cis dudes: 

You know how we spend a lot of time saying that women just can't comprehend how bad a really solid nut shot feels.

Duces (cis dudes) talk about how the pain is just blinding, and incapacitating (it makes you throw up and sweat uncontrollably, and probably is completely incapacitating)  and no one seems to get it until they've gone through it.

Of course other cis dudes get it. They nod and say "GOD YES!!" and there's this whole brotherhood of "You GET it!" that surrounds the nut shot.

If women try to say that something else hurts a lot (from childbirth to menstrual cramps) dudes jump in and say, "Yeah, but you barely have to TOUCH our junk for it to hurt." If they liken it to nailing a funny bone we say "No it's so much worse."

We don't even let them compare it to stepping on a Lego.

We basically inform them they can't really wrap their heads around quite how painful a full force nut shot is UNTIL/UNLESS THEY EXPERIENCE IT.

Try to remember that the next time you're dictating to a woman that street harassment is no big deal....or that sexism in the workplace shouldn't bother them that much....or that the double standard of society about her clothes isn't that big a deal......or........

Or....

Or....

No More DOTs!

I wasn't planning on doing a social justice metaphor today, but I happened along one that seems to have instantly caused several people an epiphany, including the friend I first used it on.

Often when explaining linguistic harm to people we have to resort to metaphors. Many people who can only be insulted or offended, but cannot really be harmed by words (cis het white guys in particular). They don't understand the difference between offense and harm. A dead baby joke might be offensive, and I would leave if they were told around me, but no one thinks they would be okay to tell at the wake of a baby who died from S.I.D.S. They would drag the parents through the experience again and cause people actual mental and emotional harm.

Words don't have to rip your flesh from your bone like you're an X-man villain to do "real" damage. That is a sophist and immature outlook that everyone should get over when they retire the "Sticks and stones" poem for the realization that the N-word is not just your run of the mill taboo curse word.

The way slurs or insults cause splash damage (like "bitch" or "gay") go beyond just the people they intend to insult and cause more than just "offense." They remind people of the less-than-fully-human status they hold in our society because their very identity is associated with "bad things." Further they reinforce the negative stereotypes that serve to other and dehumanize. Some people endure this constantly.  Which does measurable harm by statistical bellwethers in everything from blood pressure to heart disease to average salary.

Usually the metaphor that is used is the "death by a thousand cuts" metaphor. That is, no one slur or insult is the coup de grace. Men (for example) can be insulted by being called names, but they get over it pretty quickly, and no insult a man can hear really serves to remind them of the way they are treated as second class citizens. Women on the other hand are the subject of a VAST array of insults that tie negative characteristics towards feminine traits (bitch, cunt, pussy, ...like a girl) and serve as a reminder that they are never going to be seen as fully human by society at large. No single insult is fatal, but a thousand cuts all cause bleeding.

Today I found quite a bit of traction with the idea of damage over time spells, which may work if whoever you're talking to is into video games or roleplaying games. One damage over time spell...no biggie. You get immolate, corruption, curse of agony, serpent sting, and vampiric touch....you're in trouble.

Here's what I said: "It's like a D.O.T. It might not do that much right when it first lands, but it keeps working. It keeps reminding you of your status. And it keeps tying your identity to something people think is A Bad Thing™ If you have 50k HP, you don't think much about a dot that does 3 damage per tick (that's not even enough to cancel out your healing), but you might not be so blasé if the duration was an entire week....and you get ten or fifteen of these DOTs slapped on you every day....sometimes just for walking down the street....and that's ten or fifteen per marginalized identity, so a queer woman of color would deal with racism DOTs, sexism DOTs, and Heteronormative DOTs.

And then you come along and tell them not to be so angry that you just used yet another area-effect DOT "as a joke," or used a word that means THEM to insult to another person, or dropped a slur and informed them that you don't see what the big deal is."

I can't speak for everyone, but this particular gaming nerd insta-GROKed the concept.

A Reminder About The Tone of the Rebels

Remember when we all respectfully told England that we didn't like their taxes and could we please get some representation if it wasn't too much trouble? And we didn't do anything that wasn't taking the high ground or making our points in the most academic and non emotional manner. We never let incendiary rhetoric shut down "real communication." And the Brits listened and never had to tell us that we weren't doing ourselves any favors. They listened because we didn't ever let our more strident members be so militant or affect the discourse with their toxic rage. Our tone was always above reproach and England really respected that moral high ground as we debated it out through proper channels and with excellent diction and grammar. That's why the loyalists and the French stuck with us–because we never alienated our allies by being too angry. We certainly didn't destroy property or disrespect the law, the government, or those agents of England who were just doing their jobs. And in the end, England just LET us be self governing because we peacefully, rationally convinced them of the merits of our argument.

Today we are the United States and we celebrate our independence because we never hurt our own cause by going "too far."

Happy Fourth of July my ever respectably politicked America!!