3817

My wife was part of a progressive facebook group. She made a post expressing her support of BLM on her personal facebook account as an attempt to reach out to people who did not support them. One of her facebook friends started saying mean things about trans people, angering the group members who saw it. She agreed that things being said weren’t okay, and said she was going to talk 1-1 with the offensive person. She didn’t have time to do so immediately, as she was at work.

She was purged from the group for “providing a platform for hate”. She cried for a couple weeks about this. It really hurt her.

Edit: Yes I don’t understand why the person made a blm post into a referendum on trans people either. He was being an ass.

3818

You are the poster child for pushing people away. Your “i’m always right and whatever you say is stupid” is what is pushing normal people away from any discourse at all. You are the anti-gman and you and your type are doing more harm for public discourse than anything else. That article is pointing at ScottGibson and saying “yes, this is exactly the point I’m making”

3819

Glad you got that off your chest. Now, point to me ‘purging’ anyone from anything.

3820

This sounds like a really bad situation for sure, and the timing considerations for people who have lots of time to themselves or access to computers as they work or smartphones, is often not at all considerate to those who really need to just themselves off 8+ hours a day to work or take care of things.

The problem is, the idea of political correctness, the term politically correct, has morphed to the point where one side rejects it entirely as some sort of front their person and all their ideas and another just uses it to envelope everything under the sun. Trying to be considerate of other groups, making a honest effort with that attempt for some is enough. I’d say calling out others when they are not, is also part of it. Silence is approval. Now that doesn’t have some sort of arbitrary time ticker, but when someone lobs something out there and it hangs in the air, they’re going to take that as everyone agrees with them. They just do.

3821

I understand completely. What hurt her the most I think was that she felt that having been on the group for a couple of years, everyone should know that she would never just be okay with that kind of speech, but a lot of people turned on her all of a sudden with no warning, and it was just done.

The reason she wanted to talk to the person was because even though he was being an ass, like I said, he was the dad of two little kids who had just lost his wife within the past month to pancreatic cancer. Just a horrible story. He really was not in a normal state of mind, and she wanted to explain to him that it wasn’t okay to talk that way while at the same time not just ban him and push him away.

3822

Yeah they didn’t give her any time to deal with it.

I don’t think that’s a sign of some sort of politically correct backlash though. It’s the dynamics within a private group. The exact same thing could have happened in an alt-right group, someone says or does something, and years of friendship and connections ends. We wouldn’t classify that as too much political correctness then right?

There is something unique about online communities and the cultures surrounding them and really the ability to just leave them or reject them with little to no recourse to some parties. Political correct behavior, or as I like to call it, being a decent human being to other human beings in the physical world, in the day to day… that’s not as tall of an ask as I think people who only see it in these debates and not just to go pick up some milk, makes it.

3823

Agree entirely with this. We’ve seen good evidence in recent years that using disapproval in the face of bad ideas (e.g. racism, bigotry, etc) was doing a lot more work to keep society civil than anyone gave it credit for. All it took was for high-profile people to say bigoted things without any apparent negative consequences to open of a can of worms it will now be difficult to close. I’ve yet to see a complaint about PC that isn’t, in the end, a complaint that one used to be able to say bigoted things and get away with it, and now when one does, one gets criticized.

3824

That really sucks.

3825

Just as an aside i thought her position interesting in understanding the rise and connection of the alt-right with modern political currents, not as a reflection upon modern manifestations of online progressivism, which is why i posted it in this thread. Though this discussion morphed instantly into something else because of course it did.

I think the Justin Trudeau article i posted indicates the kind of intolerance of intolerance expanded to everything simultaneously that’s so exasperating. That there are only two shades, only 100% or 0%.

So Justin Trudeau is a “white supremacist racist” because he failed to expand the refugee programme, because only a white supremacist racist wouldn’t. And he didn’t, so he is. Q.E.D. This may be satifying to some but indicates not a desire for coalition building but for … let’s say… something like, but not quite, like “tribal” supremacy. (This is just a brainstorm so don’t hold me to it. It probably doesn’t help i’m reading ibn Khaldun right now who frames everything in terms of tribes.)

That kind of hyperbolic rhetoric is acceptable and even encouraged among certain progressives because it is seen as, in brief, “punching up”. That it’s ok for certain groups to be hyperbolic because they deserve to be.

That’s what struck me about her article as being insightful - the “left” that has been used to using that kind of language for some time (at least in certain circles) for decades and is pretty dumbfounded if not horrified when the “alt-right” has started using the same kinds of hyperbole. That reads true to me from first hand experience.

The problem today is both sides are taking the hyperbole at face value and both sides seem to be accepting it as fundamentally true, either as the opposition’s position or their own. And so it isn’t hyperbolic anymore, and now we can’t have nice things.

The problem with saying because politically correctness is intrinsically about oppression vs oppressed there can only be 100% or 0% is that there’s never going to be 100% agreement about what that behavior is. So there can’t be disagreement or even just misunderstanding in good faith because, by definition, no one could disagree in good faith, so ipso facto Justin Trudeau is a white supremacist and Mark_L’s wife is a monster. Even among people working and more or less sharing similar views and political outlooks.

OTOH, this wasn’t really the reason i posted the article linked above.

3826

There doesn’t need to be.

See I think you think that our society has been practicing intolerance for decades. I know we’ve been practicing the art of tolerating the intolerable for generations, and it’s a failed policy.

Sexism, racism, antisemitism and general bigotry towards anyone that doesn’t fit a sexual normal has been an ongoing and somewhat discrete but growing problem for decades. And the problem with not calling people out on this shit, is not only do they think it’s reinforcement it creates a breeding ground for it, so it spreads. Trump made it okay to be racist, sexist, and to just generally treat “others” like garbage, like animals, like less than again, but he didn’t create that sentiment. It’s been there for years and fertilized by people who know better who just want to have relationships with people that treat others like they are nothing because they’re not being treated that way so… hey I can tolerate it right? If they think all black people are lazy and free-loaders, but I’m white, why should that bother me, I just want to hang out with a “good” person. I’m sure they’re a good person if you discount the fact they’re blatantly racist.

No the answer is not to tolerate the intolerable. You don’t give someone an excuse or an out because they claim to not know why comparing black women to men and apes isn’t okay. You don’t pat them on the head and give them a cookie because they used the word nigger and rap exists. You don’t chuckle uncomfortably when your boss smacks your lady co-worker on the ass and calls her sweetie because you’re a dude, and it’s not you being degraded. This shit is 100% not okay, and there should not be a middle ground.

Now should there be some leeway in debates, sure. Are there some grey areas that we have to struggle with as a society, sure, but by and large, these people crying that political correctness is somehow unraveling society, give them a day or two and it becomes pretty clear that these people hold some abhorrent views and just don’t like being called out on it.

So when I read a piece that talks about political correctness that veers into complaints about healthcare and wage equality and and the loss of humor and intellectual exploration… this person doesn’t have a clue. When she sits on a bus and has to be told for the entire two hour experience how she doesn’t belong in the country she was born in, how her existence is an affront to the American way of life, and how she looks more like an ape than human… she’s not going to walk away from that talking about whether or not her healthcare can be cheaper or if some comedian got yelled out on twitter.

Some people just want to live their lives and not be confronted, constantly, by people who invent a new way every day to be pissed at a group that they don’t or at least don’t think they belong to or to have their history belittled, or told their experiences were and are nothing because someone else had a hard childhood.

We can teach people how to interact with people who do not look or act like them, and for those who refuse to learn… no, there doesn’t need to be a middle ground. We tried that. We got Trump and Nazis marching in the streets.

3827

Well, like the article stated, these things are so politically charged now that these topics so quickly become meta and individual details get washed out.

In no way is this some strange sideways attempt to normalize racism or nazism or otherwise trivialize the same (or give space here to that kind of argumentation). The fact that disingenuous alt-right arguments attempt to do so makes it almost impossible to talk about these things, as can be plainly seen. I think it should still be possible to say when things don’t necessarily follow (in the example given, not expanding refugee quotas being the same as white supremacy), but we’re past the point of no return on these things.

Racism is so widespread and imbued into the fabric of society, that frankly, we probably should break the country up today, to give people a chance to create a new social contract with one another. I don’t really see a way forward with conspiratorial, propagandist media like Fox making such inroads among white conservatives with the country we have now.

I guess i’d just caution that earnest people caught in the crossfire of these movements aren’t necessarily still going to be allies if they’re driven away, which i suspect was something like her point. If everything is literally a life or death choice, not everyone driven away on one side is going to stick with that side; and then they’re not allies, but enemies.

3828

I don’t believe this is a valid option now anymore than when the Civil War was literally fought to keep the state together. Yes, racism is ingrained but even the vocal majority, is not the majority… not even close. The other people just need to get off their ass and participate. I don’t know how to teach an adult who made it through life without any empathy, but we can certainly teach children.

If getting labeled a racist makes someone join the racists, they were probably already headed that way. There is nothing on God’s green earth that would make me join the party of the KKK, Neo Nazis and white supremacists right now. It’s not going to happen. The Democrats are struggling to redefine, but they don’t have to just full left… The other option is another party. But if someone says something like well that sign really pissed me off so now I am joining Trump… pfft, they were looking for an excuse already.

3829

My unpopular view is that straight white men are used to being the default of society, and being told to be respectful to others angers them. If they decide to do it on their own, which they may well do, then that’s fine, but they become enraged at the idea of being told to behave by their lessers. In their minds they are each of them Kings, and beholden to no one. Kings is how I would describe their self image, but petulant children is how I see them. So I think “political correctness” DOES push some of these people farther into darkness, but the root cause is not the PCness, but rather this character defect in how they respond to it.

3830

I think sometimes we can say something and mean nothing by it, but being corrected is irritating because we did mean nothing by it.

I remember when there was a push for people to stop referring to adult women as “girls.” That seems to have disappeared, but I remember being corrected once or twice over it. In my mind I was like, ‘Oh c’mon, you know I didn’t mean anything by it’ but I did understand where the correction was coming from.

Now I think everyone is ok with using “girl” at times. “Oh I’m going out my girlfriends.” “It’s just a bunch of us girls getting together,” etc.

3831

Exactly this. My father in law considers Happy Holidays to be a personal affront, and a sign that the country is trying to eradicate Christianity.

When you are used to being the privileged, then equality feels like oppression. Lack of empathy, indeed.

3832

I think women were always okay with calling each other ‘girls’. Not so much when men do it for them, because from men it can’t help sounding condescending. There are other examples of this phenomenon, the most obvious being the fact that white people should not necessarily feel free to use the same language people of color use for themselves.

3833

I don’t think this is especially unpopular. Its cone up as a pretty consistent line of thought recently, e.g. in Hannah Gadsy comedy special Nanette “We invented the game…we aren’t supposed to have to play it”.

Also, similarly, I was going to out this in the identity politics thread, but didn’t really feel up to defending it in detail:

White men bridle at the notion of being part of a tribe or engaging in identity politics. (Ahem.) Alone among social groups, they are allowed the illusion that they have only their own bespoke identity, that they are pure freethinkers, citizens, unburdened and uninfluenced by collective baggage (unique and precious “snowflakes,” if you will).
No one else is allowed to think that — at least not for long, before they are reminded again that they are, in the eyes of their country, little more than their identity, their asterisk. No one else gets to pretend their politics are free of identity.

3834

Well, what I meant by unpopular is the idea that asking people to behave respectfully- being “PC” - may actively push people* towards behaving worse. This is in contrast to the people being “lost causes, anyway”.

I don’t think people like to hear that, because they interpret me as blaming the people asking, when that is absolutely not the case. I put blame where it belongs, squarely on the shoulders of the people who can’t behave with kindness and respect towards others.

*usually male, usually white

3835

I would exclude the usually male part. White women are right up there with the men. It’s just not as big of a majority.

3836

It’s still indicative of a lack of empathy and thought generally.

Just spin back 50 years and go with the ‘N’ word for a different audience. The person may have been brought up with it meaning nothing to them, but to a different audience the connotations are those of servants and slaves.

Same thing with Happy Holidays versus Merry Christmas. If you know your friends are Jewish, so you still insist on wishing them a Merry Christmas,or do you respect them enough to say Happy Hanukkah?

And if you don’t know, do you assume, or go generic?