Well you see Mark Asher that is why we have these conversations using these words displayed on your screen, that are then transmitted by your eyes into your brain for further processing.
Multiple people say this, and they’ve pretty much decided to just label me with some label because of it but here’s the thing… It’s not with ill-intention no matter how many times someone comes in and tries to claim it is.
I am drawing from my life experience when I discuss some of these topics, not all. My life experience is drastically different than some, maybe most, people on this forum, for a variety of reasons. That’ not to say it’s harder, or worse, or any other thing that makes one experience bad or good over the other one, it just means that’s of course it would be a pattern. Because that basis for it isn’t changing although for some topics I like to think I have shifted views, gradually a bit over the years, not days, but years listening to other POVs here.
But if someone wants to post a burning cross in the middle of a bronies conversation, and tell me the context should mean I should not react with instant revulsion, hate and fear, well you can ask me to do that… but that’s freaking hard to do.
So what i am trying to say, is asking me to grow a thick skin, is the same thing someone told you what to do as a kid when someone said you should go back to Africa, or says black people look like monkeys or women just don’t have an interest in science or math so why should you matter, and if any of that offends or bothers you, you’re just not thick skinned enough.
Maybe the answer is, people should not be told to go back to countries they’ve never been too.Maybe comparing black people to animals or black women to men isn’t okay, and if I’m suggesting that if a response to this bothers me I need to grow a thicker skin… maybe think twice about that term and why you’re wanting to use it. No one, no one here is talking about banning people or banning words, just think twice.
Some of this stuff, it’s like others think it’s ancient history. It’s not. It happens today, right now.
There should be an article releasing soon i think… there are people in medicine, today, who literally believe people have thicker skin or different pain tolerances based on nothing but their race.
People must remember that there is a difference between what someone wrote and what someone else read. Communication is not math, since it’s tempered by who writes/reads, context, history, etc. If you’re willing to have a proper conversation, you must be aware of those differences, and either clarify them where needed, or be ready to give the other part the benefit of the doubt unless intent is quite clear.
I think in the end it’s less about having a “thick skin” - to use the metaphor du jour - and more about being aware of the limitations of communication (especially this particular kind of communication) and being open to work around its limitations as needed.
Hey, perfect timing!
Today’s XKCD, fits pretty well here
I guess it’s a slightly older study, the newer one is women specific. Medical students, some, literally believe black people have thicket skin. There is no science to this but I suppose if you ask people enough to grow one maybe they actually think you can!
Summed my thoughts up pretty much there. +1
I try to keep ‘this guy(or gal) is an asshole’ thoughts to the specific thread/subject so as to not dillute other topics and other forums, works for me. But subconciously it is probably spreading. Maybe the forum needs a “browse with no usernames” mode, that way you dont know who you should be angry at in another thread…
Also; In general it is helpfull to not being overtly sensitive to everything, “stay a while and listen…” before going into outrage/offended mode, even if it is popular in this age.
I try to look at it not as memorizing an ever-growing list of words that are verboten by the thought police, but just bearing in mind the knowledge that other human beings will read my words and be affected by them.
The impact is asymmetric – if someone has mentioned that a trivial adjustment in word choice on my part can avoid substantial distress for them, why wouldn’t I do it?
It’s also a matter of accurately presenting myself through my communication. If I harbor no ill-will toward a given group, then I don’t want to give the impression that I do by unconsciously using language that is hostile toward them. It took a deliberate effort to excise words like “gyp” and “retarded” from my vocabulary after being informed that they were problematic, but it makes it that much less likely that I’ll give the wrong impression.
I thought the recent exchange about someone using “rape” colloquially was well handled. No judgment or name-calling, just a low-key “hey, you might not be aware, but that’s not cool.”
I would posit that wanting a place to be more inclusive is not the same as the place being exclusive. I have some beer, I’d like more beer. I do not have negative beer. Eww negative beer.
yeah I thought everyone was pretty chill about that as well. I also got called out for using a slur about my political opponents which I was happy to change and I appreciated it being pointed out to me.
I think thick-skinned can still be used reasonably and without racial connotations. That doesn’t mean Nesrie’s examples of minorities being told to have thicker skin are invalid or not meaningful, but that context matters.
I think it’s fairly neutral as a description. I’m not going to stop calling someone thick skinned if I think they’re good at not letting things get to them.
But I’m going to be a lot more careful about offering it as advice or telling someone they should be more thick skinned. Whether the context is racial or something else, it can easily read as shifting the blame or the responsibility from an aggressor to the victim, and that’s not okay.
It’s “thoughts and prayers” all over again. There’s a context in which that is a welcome comfort, and a context in which that is a cold dismissal of pain or abdication of responsibility. We don’t need to throw out the good usage with the bad, we just need to be aware of it.
So in our context, Mark, I completely agree that being thick skinned will be an asset to anyone online. But I wouldn’t offer it up as advice or an alternative to a discussion about making a community more welcoming. I read it as just a throw-away remark in your original comment, I wouldn’t have called you out for it personally:
But once it was pointed out, I can understand how this thread is probably the wrong context for it, no matter how you intended it. This thread is implicitly about what we could do to make Qt3 better for everyone, thick-skinned or not.
(Edit: @wumpus, I intended to make this post a reply to Mark’s more recent post, but since I scrolled back up further and hit “reply” to his earlier post to quickly quote it, it points back to that post. My bad on that, I understand why it did that. Is there a way to redirect what it’s in response to now via edits? I can’t find a way, and that might be by design, I just want to make sure I’m not missing something.)
Exactly so, my good Floridian. I’ve mentioned it before but it seems it bears repeating. She turns and says are you all right? Well I must be fine because my heart’s still beating. Oh whoops, I’ve been drinking too. Cheers!
So much this. Back 10 years ago it was quite likely that, when encountering something monumentally moronic, defying all sense and reason, or just plain spiteful and unfair, I’d exclaim ‘that’s retarded’. It was part of my, and many others, vocabulary. A little further back and in high school, and the same might be said of ‘thats gay’ for something I disliked.
It was a conscious effort on my part, and brought about through a willingness to learn when corrected. People pointed out that these things, trivial and innocuous in my mind, were hurtful. That they used something about some people, used it as an attack, and how that basically treated those people as lesser, as without value. How that would feel to be such a person and have something fundamental to your existence, and have it be used as a weapon and insult by people constantly.
So I’ve excised those, and others, from my vocabulary over the years. Because, really, we can all be better, and I don’t want to harm others through careless word choice. After all, I suffer no harm from this change, and I know it could harm others if I didn’t. It’s just the decent thing to do.
Yes, I didn’t mean a whole lot by it, and it wasn’t directed at any one person. This is what sometime happens with stuff in a forum post where everyone can stare at it and think.
One of the examples put forth of how to act here is don’t say anything you wouldn’t say face to face. Well, in a face to face conversation I could easily say something like, “You know, people who post stuff on the internet need to be a little bit thick-skinned because others will invariably disagree with them” and I don’t think anyone would have been offended or felt like it was an unfair remark. I bet if I was at a bar with other Qt3ers and said something like that over beers people would have nodded in agreement, though perhaps that’s just my fantasy!
But when you post it online the comment gets frozen in place and can take on more meaning, more gravitas than was ever intended.
Thinking about that makes me wonder about the idea of what is gained and what is lost if people are more careful about how they post and the language they use? Perhaps the tone here might be even nicer, though I think of this place as already being friendly, but if there’s less spontaneity, fewer off-the-cuff remarks, fewer attempts at humor, are we going to lose something? I dunno. Maybe the potential gain is worth it, but I don’t think it’s a given. I think it’s worth discussing.
Well you’re in the right place! I think.
I hadn’t thought about it myself for years until I read this topic.
There’s a bit of a cost though. I have a pretty analytical temperament and the emotional distance I use to look at some things might classify as astronomical. I’m not nearly as easily upset as when I was 20, but I find it’s harder to feel super pleased as well. “You’re losin’ all your highs and lows…” (luckily I did let someone love me!).
I will freely admit it took me a number of years to remove gypped and retarded from my casual lingo. I grew up with that language, and when it was finally pointed out to me, I had to make a conscious effort to change. I even remember my initial lizard-brain/gut reaction was to deny it was the same as these other words… but then I just heard what was being said. It’s not as if I don’t understand why it’s hard to change.
You’re right. it can be used that way. It’s actually unfortunate that there is this crossover in the business realm and then these minority issues. I wish it never happened, but it did and yeah no one is asking for expecting perfection.
Another lingering thought-line tagging onto some commentary from @MikeJ, @Rock8man, and @RickH, summed up a little here:
There’s all this talk of thick skin, and emotional distance, and more than a few of us sharing stories here and elsewhere about how initial forays into Foruming/the net were done with trepidation and more than a few bloodied virtual noses till, to paraphrase, we toughened up and learned to mix it up rather than get wounded by harsh behavior.
And we kinda talk about that like a natural evolution and perhaps even the right and proper thing. The internet’s a mean, uncaring, harsh place, so you gotta be tough, you gotta get that thick skin, you gotta get some distance/perspective, before you come in here, cuz otherwise, your fragile, invested, emotional feelings are gonna get hurt.
And get hurt they do till you either leave or learn to care a little less, and then you’re well and proper ready for internettin’.
Again, no one here has put it quite that harshly or uncaringly. Well, at least none of the three I tagged above :)
But it’s a general sentiment that kinda flows through our stories and commentary, I think we can all agree.
And I can’t help but wonder, stepping back a bit, if maybe it’s not a bit of a self-reinforcing problem. People have always been argumentative and short and sarcastic and direct and harsh and off-the-cuff and feisty and no-nonsense and jaded on the internet, so to make it here, you yourself gotta learn to roll that way. Can’t have no soft edges or bright eyes or big hopes on the net: it’s a tough, uncaring hellscape where you gotta sack up, nut up, and man up to the challenge of talkin’ with folks, dadgummit.
And, you know, in the process of burr-grinding off your soft edges and learning to shade your bright eyes and crushing down your big hopes, maybe you become a little less for it yourself, and a little more argumentative, or short, or sarcastic, or direct, or harsh, or off-the-cuff-, or feisty, or no-nonsense, or jaded. You fought the alpha dog and got to join the pack. You got made it through the hazing rituals and are welcomed to the Frat. You survived 2 months of Basic Training and you’re in the army now. Welcome to the war soldier, it’s time to fight.
And so I can’t help but wonder if maybe the internet doesn’t just have to be a warren of filth and cruelty and insanity and anonymized torment and torture and stalking and shittiness if we collectively say, “You know what, that’s kind of bullshit. Get your shitty 4chan behavior out of these Civilized Lands and go be a bitter incel troll elsewhere, goddammit.” Maybe the net can be a place where “tits or gtfo” isn’t the first order of business when a girl posts, and where we don’t drop the N-word everytime we die in CODBLOPS XIV BLOPP ROYALE, and where Nickelback isn’t “gaymusic for queer-ears,” and where shit isn’t just “retarded” sometimes.
And to that end, yeah, I do agree with some of y’all saying that Qt3 ain’t nearly as bad as other places (s/o @Scuzz and @ineffablebob in particular on that one; I know you’ve made that point here and elsewhere recently; probably others, too). Hell, it’s probably better now than it was five years ago, even, and certainly ten. The world’s a little more aware nowadays. Sometimes shit like actual goddamn Nazis marching in the streets of the world’s largest and most powerful democracies and reams of the world’s most powerful men going down and losing their careers in a torrent of revealed sexual abuse can wake you up to things a little.
But! But. . . Qt3 ain’t perfect, either. Shit, I’m not. I’ve probably called something retarded within the last 12 months. I got pissed when my gf pointed out I shouldn’t have bought a metal tee that looked alarmingly like the sorts of MURCA FUCK YEAH shirts worn by Trump-supporters in my local area when I would be wearing it out to a lot of local businesses frequented by POC, because of the implication. That bugged me. It really fucking rubbed me the wrong way, because goddammit, I’m not a racist! I’m one of the good guys! I fight the good fight!
Except, shit, I’m wearing what looks, from the distance, like a racist’s uniform, deep in the South, in a state that went for Trump, but is also home to a lot of black and Latinx folks, and where tensions are high and people do feel threatened and disregarded and disrespected and unwelcome, and where big, burly white dudes in shirts with military shit and faded flags all over 'em are often the source of that threat and disregard and disrespect and unwelcomeness.
So, yeah, my particular shirt was actually from a Swedish metal band that routinely sings about killing Nazis, and yeah, I’m a hardlining pinko commie liberal megahurricane, but. . . from a distance? Someone who’s spent their whole life living in fear and being mistreated and being under threat, and in the atmosphere last year followign the election that seemed to confirm all their worst fears? Not the best move on my part, and it really bothered me to have to recognize that and internalize it.
So. . . yeah. It’s just a shirt. But to someone else, it’s a tripwire, a triggerpoint, to a lifetime of fears and anxieties and pain, and when I can’t put myself in their shoes thanks to my privilege as being a SUPER white-passing Hispanic dude and take a step back and buy a different shirt design, then I’m just compounding their problems.
And when those folks show up here where we’re all comfortable and numb and merrily slugging it out with each other when threads come to blows in the same way we’ve always done it since time immemorial and it’s always been fine. . . and all the stuff that we’re totally sure isn’t racist, or sexist, or bigoted, or backwards, or fundamentally wrong, or whatever, is off-putting to those other folks, and they point some of it out, no, no, we shouldn’t just tell em to suck it up and learn to live with it cuz the internet is mean and no one cares about their feelings and if they just toughen up a little bit, they’ll figure out that’s just how folks talk around here.
Just cuz we had to do it, just cuz we had to learn how to deal with the slings and arrows of the internet and general, which, for most of us, as a buncha well-to-do, straight, older white men, are gonna slide right off because folks have so little to target us directly with (and even then, the gentler souls still can be hurt when their finely crafted opinion is casually ignored or their passionate post is derided and mocked, because that feels like a direct and unkind judgment of them), doesn’t mean that we have to keep reinforcing a reality where everyone else who shows up after us has to have the same shitty experience and wind up with the same shitty jaded attitude.
We can step back, look around, hear it when we’re told, “Hey, that’s genuinely not cool, can you stop doing that,” and ask ourselves, “Am I really gonna be materially disadvantaged if I pull that insult out of my vocabulary, or if I try to be a little more mindful of how forcefully I stride into that particular sensitive topic, or, you know, whether or not I wear my cool new metal shirt covered in USA flags, confederate color schemes, and guns into a store full of people who rightfully regard every single interaction with a cop as a life-or-death matter?” And I kinda suspect most of the time, we’ll realize, oh, yeah, you know what? I can let go of that with exactly zero loss to myself, and make someone else’s life a little happier, a little easier, and a little more pleasant, and in so doing, make the whole place I’m in just a little more welcoming and friendly and caring.
It’s not about WrongThink or This Side Vs That Side or Us vs Them. It’s. . . about hearing folks out when they steer us toward being better, and about being mindful of what we say and what we do, and about being good little Boy Scouts (cuz let’s face it, 98% of us would qualify) and leaving this place better than when we found it.
I have heard that saying all my life, so I don’t think it has any racial connotation on it’s own. However telling any group to “cowboy up” or “get a thicker skin” is probably not smart. I can just imagine the reaction of white evangelicals or gay bashers who were told to get a “thicker skin”.
Telling your kid to grow a tougher skin when his sports team loses is fine, telling a minority to grow a tougher skin when he is mistreated isn’t.
As for “shrill” being used up thread, it was used by a troll while trolling, so I am not sure why he pulled that word out of his hat. Probably not a good choice of words.
I feel like I should acknowledge your post, but I am just not sure how to yet. I am thinking about it though, and it isn’t ignored on my end.
I’m fairly certain I know why that specific word was used.