Okay, here’s the problem with the idea that oppressed groups can “alienate allies” by not being nice enough:
You shouldn’t be an ally because oppressed groups are nice to you. You should be an ally because you believe they deserve basic human rights. Hearing “I hate men” shouldn’t make men stop being feminist. Hearing “fuck white people” shouldn’t make white people stop opposing racism.
Your opposition to oppression should be moral, and immovable. Your belief that all humans should be treated with equal respect shouldn’t be conditional based on whether or not individual people are nice to you.
This is true, however: Don’t let tumblr purity culture tell you it’s ok to attack and harass people who call themselves “allies” if you catch them doing something problematic. Tell them, calmly and without accusations or name calling, why the thing they did was wrong. Somebody who’s in the process of learning how to be a good ally shouldn’t have to suffer through some angry tumblrite’s verbal abuse every time they slip up on something. They’re learning. Act as an educator, not an enforcer.
Tag: sj
2017 trend alert
black and white morality is OUT
accepting that nobody will ever be perfect, educating the people who are willing to listen, and encouraging them to grow and learn from their mistakes, is IN
https://aspen–cool.tumblr.com/post/160687412240?Cheap-Spinners
WHY ARE PEOPLE LINKING FIDGET SPINNERS IN THE NOTES
anyway what i was going to say before that is that i don’t trust people who make these kinds of posts, like at all, because even if it sounds pretty reasonable, ops of posts like “stop black and white morality/callout culture/witch hunts/being mean/whatever” has almost always done something
anyone who wants to look for dirt on me is welcome to try. i have nothing to hide.
The fidget spinner commenters are probably bots which comment on popular posts or posts with the word “trend” in so they can sell spinners.
But anyway: people being pro-black-and-white morality are the ones I don’t trust because they believe that they’re somehow more morally superior than everyone else.
Morality isn’t a one-sided thing, it’s an individual set of beliefs that are the result of our cultures, religions, education, and experiences. That’s why there’s so much discussion about the ethics involved in so many things: people on each side of the argument believe that they’re the ones who’re most ethical.
Think of it like this: most of us believe hurting people/animals is wrong overall. However, if needed, many of us would use violence to protect ourselves. Many others might never raise a hand to defend themselves, even if their lives were in danger.
Neither groups are more ethically correct than the other, but each
chooses to act the way they do because of their individual beliefs.Black and white morality says that either violence is always okay when necessary, or that violence is always wrong, and therefore it’s a refusal to acknowledge the individual’s beliefs in the matter. Morality doesn’t have a single correct side, it has correct sides on a case by case basis, so understanding that things like this aren’t always going to be black and white is the best way of talking about morality/ethics. (if you want a more thorough example, the Heinz Dilemma is a good breakdown of some different stages of moral reasoning; i also used ethics and morals interchangeably though in some contexts they’re different things)
We all have the ability to progress in our understanding of right from wrong, so maybe if you honestly believe someone’s doing something wrong, try educating them on what they’re done wrong so that they actually stop doing those ‘somethings’… you know, kinda like what the OP was trying to say in the first place?
U gotta understand that SPECIFICALLY the phrase “black and white morality” or “black and white thinking” is hugely loaded with ableism in this context, and that’s no accident esp taking into account what @normanbates said – what better way to reprimand victims/supporters of victims than essentially call them crazy??
There are ways to encourage learning and compassion to those still learning without pushing this nasty ableist shit. Use a different word. If you aren’t specifically attacking ppl who view things in “black and white” (I.e. ppl w/ PDs), then you can use another word.
First of all I wanna apologize to my followers, because I know y’all didn’t sign up for a bunch of fuckening discourse. But I’m getting real sick and tired of this.
I’ve had a lot of people accuse me of being ableist for this post, specifically against autistics and people with BPD. I’m autistic and have BPD. This is something I struggle with myself. But I also recognize that it’s a problem, and that I am capable of doing something about it. I’m working on it in therapy. I’m not saying it’s fucking easy, because it’s not, but it also isn’t something where I can just say “this is the way I am and we all gotta deal with it”. If you have a personality disorder or neurotype that predisposes you to this way of thinking, it just means you have to work harder at it than others.
Also, what the fuck do you mean by saying “black and white” is ableist phrasing? It’s not used specifically to attack neurodivergent people. It’s literally what this kind of thinking is called, no matter who’s doing it. If I wanted to attack people who split, I would have specifically said splitting. But that wasn’t what I set out to do. I made the original post because there’s a disturbing trend on social media sites, especially left-leaning ones like Tumblr, of attacking people who say anything that’s even the slightest bit problematic (or something that can be misconstrued as such), without taking any sort of context or personal circumstances into consideration. Kind of like you just did with me. It’s a culture of no mercy, no forgiveness, guilty-until-proven-innocent that kills a lot of productive discussions before they can even start and often just punishes people for literally not knowing better.
I didn’t even want this post to become popular. I was venting my frustrations and for some reason people kept reblogging it.
pb8:
it really bothers me that so many people on this site treat ableism like it’s black and white.
just now i saw a post where op was like “i’m glad that spinners are popular because it normalizes fidgets and decreases stigma” and someone replied like “no!! it’s absolutely TERRIBLE that neurotypicals are using these fidgets because when they get in trouble they make things harder for mentally ill kids!!” and like you guys do realize that? you’re both right? it isn’t a decisive fact that neurotypicals using fidgets is either good or bad, there are both benefits and consequences that need to be taken into consideration.
a few months ago there was a post going around that was like, *neurotypical voice* why are you bouncing your leg, and somebody reblogged it saying that the post was ableist because autistic kids can get overstimulated by leg bouncing. i go to a school for the mentally disabled, and i’ve been in this exact scenario, my classmate wasn’t able to focus because i was bouncing my leg and although i felt bad i told him that i wouldn’t be able to stop for long because i do it subconsciously due to my adhd. he wasn’t being ableist for asking me to stop, and i wasn’t being ableist for saying i couldn’t, we just both had different needs. in the end, our compromise was that i went to work in the computer lab.
you have to understand that there is always more than one side to issues like these, and that we should be striving for understanding and balance over demonization of one side and blind support of the other. this is especially relevant when people on both sides are mentally ill or disabled, because sometimes symptoms will clash and you just need to deal with it.
valid criticisms towards the popularity of fidget items:
- a lot of people don’t realize they’re useful for children (especially neurodivegent children) and treat them like bad distractions instead of useful devices
invalid criticisms towards the popularity of fidget items:
- “neurotypical children dont need it!” some neurotypicals can stim.
- ”you’re stealing something that’s useful for neurodivergent children only” this might surprise yall, but you cant expect fucking 6-11 year old kids to know that they’re neurodivergent. What you brush off as NTs treating your tools as a fad, could be a young child unknowingly finding a device that helps them focus. like what do yall want schools to do? psychoanalyze every single child there to see if they’re worthy enough to own a fidget item.
- “they’re treating it like a fad” normalizing fidget toys can make a lot of neurodivergent children more comfortable with owning them.
- “NTs are getting them banned from classrooms!” little kids aren’t getting the toys banned and pinning the blame on them solves nothing. the real problem are uneducated adults who fail to understand that these toys have a purpose and value.
Neurotypicals have been teasing us for using fidget items for LITERAL DECADES. We have had our items taken away, we have been mocked incessantly. We have been ostracized, bullied, and relentlessly abused for needing fidgets. And now suddenly because fucking NT’s use them they’re ‘acceptable’? No, Sorry. Brrrrt. Wrong answer. Maybe next time.
YOU DO NOT GET TO SUDDENLY ENJOY SOMETHING YOU USED TO MOCK SOMEONE ELSE FOR.
what the fuck kind of argument is that
you ABSOLUTELY get to develop an appreciation for a thing you previously disparaged, you’re allowed to reconsider stances you previously held in light of new insight or perspective, you’re allowed to stop trying to distance yourself from the needs and interests of those you’ve been encouraged to see as weak or defective
also NTs are not a collective consciousness and therefore it is impossible for a third grader to have been doing anything for “literal decades.” It’s not reasonable to punish small children (who, as the OP points out, may in fact be neuroatypical and have simply not been tested/diagnosed yet) because their elders are acting slightly less egregiously unkind than your elders did
the problem is not the normalization of stim toys, it’s the lack of understanding of stimming itself, and that’s not going to be fixed by treating the toys like some kind of holy relic that can be profaned by unclean NT hands
”you’re stealing something that’s useful for neurodivergent children only” – the OP has a good response to this (that, hey, you don’t know which children may or may not be neurodivergent!) but i think it misses a larger point
you can’t be “stealing” something if it’s not a limited resource
making more stim toys available, mainstream, affordable, and present in classrooms will only make them more accessible to ND kids who need them. nobody’s taking a stim toy out of the hands of a neurodivergent six year old to hand it over to some greedy collective of NTs. do you mean that you’re stealing the utility of the thing that’s “useful for neurodivergent children only”? do you think that these toys will stop being helpful to ND kids if some critical threshold is passed where too many NT people have them? Will it somehow make stimming ineffective? how exactly would that work?
anyone else super uncomfortable with the rampant cissexist language at the women’s marches???
like the marches themselves are amazing and i’m blown away by them but i am also really saddened by the amount of trans-exclusionary language being used…
cis feminists please for the love of all that is good in this world stop equating womanhood to having a vagina/uterus/vulva/ovaries/etc. you’re excluding your trans sisters.
I know I’ve made a lot of posts recently about disturbing dynamics on this website but I really feel that I’ve narrowed down three big factors that have corrupted the way we interact, and can lead to anything from ineffective annoying conversations, to actual abuse. those factors are:
-pain and trauma being reconceptualized as currency for credibility or social capital (and how this takes away from genuine interaction and replaces it with performativity)
-pain and trauma being reconceptualized as a bargaining chip to get one out of accountability (ditto with what I said in the parenthesis in the first one)
-the above two factors leading to a normalization invasiveness on a level that would otherwise be disturbing / being encouraged to disclose painfully private information.
for a lot of bloggers who talk about marginalization and social issues, whether you have a “discourse sideblog” or a Serious Leftist Blog or a fandom blog, patterns have come up on here that over time have encouraged people to play up their already present fatigue and anger, because they’ll be awarded with popularity and credibility for making public displays out of very personal pain. with frequency over time, these displays become less about genuine sharing and helping situations, and more about subconscious (or conscious depending on the blogger) manipulation in a way: “what will I get from sharing this”. whether or not that manipulation is intentional, when this stuff is normalized people start to do it almost mindlessly, and it compromises any chance for compassion and trust and genuineness.
when we discuss oppression and power, we are often already bitter and tired from whatever contexts we have. and that comes out normally in justifiable situations – the bitterness in and of itself isn’t what I’m criticizing. this isn’t gonna turn into some “we have to be graceful and tone police ourselves for the comfort of people who hurt us” post. the problem I’m putting my finger on is when, on top of our original bitterness and tiredness that we already have to shoulder, marginalized people are also being egged on to perform MORE of it as a show of “look at how mean and jaded I am, that makes me more credible and likable than you because I act more visibly mean and jaded at all times”. it’s also the invasiveness. it’s also the detachment from reality. it’s a lot and I’m just gonna try and list a few examples I’ve seen in the past couple of months that have not changed or gotten much better from the way things were on here in 2014 or 2012:
-I’ve seen popular bloggers respond one way to another adult with genuinely abusive politics, and then turn around and respond the exact same way to a 13 year old with a silly question that seemed obvious/embarrassing. and then act confused when told that there should have been a difference in their responses for it to remain appropriate.
-I know people who feel uncomfortable posting on here when they’re genuinely hurting and in need of support, but who have learned to almost nonchalantly pull out a laundry list of grotesquely detailed stories of trauma in order to prove a point in a stupid argument, because they’ve been taught that’s necessary in order for them to be listened to.
-at one point I was convinced that if I ever decided to have patience with someone who asked an ignorant question, or stick it out through the conversation to try to change someone’s mind, it wouldn’t be half as radical as just throwing out some over the top “go fuck yourself in the ass” and making 6 posts about how I blocked them and “did you SEE that idiot??? they must hate everyone in group x”. and honestly that’s. ridiculous and is only “effective” if we just wanna stay in an insular little circle laughing at everyone without a gender studies degree. like again, it’s normal to be bitter and tired and choose not to deal with someone, or deal with someone unkindly if they aren’t listening or are evoking oppressive rhetoric, but the idea that I feel like some of us have learned that we ALWAYS have to interact like that in order to prove your politics are radical (it truly is our version of 3dgy blogging lmao) is exhausting.
-I’ve seen people who have suggested that they are trying to heal mentally or emotionally in some way, and have been accused of selling out. like somehow “not everyone can achieve recovery” turned into “anyone who talks about recovery for their own self is a sellout” – I had to leave certain mental health related blogging circles because of this.
-re: pain/trauma being used as bargaining tool for getting let off the hook for genuinely abusive interactions: again referring to some mental health related activist communities, in some circles, “don’t associate mentally ill people as being inherently abusive” somehow turned into “if someone is mentally ill they can never be called on abusive or even slightly harmful interactions.” similarly, this has happened in other “leftist” conversations along identity politics lines of “well, seeing as I have this marginalized experience, I can’t be touched with critique”. this is defensiveness taken too far and stagnates our ability to grow and actually promote healthy treatment of others (something we all claim we are trying to do)
-things that have been encouraged by self proclaimed activists include: publicizing your mental health record and whether or not you have been raped, or whether or not you have a confusing relationship with sex, or whether or not you have been a victim of familial abuse, seems just as par for the course in some circles as publicizing your astrological sign. obviously choosing to share this is an option, but I and others have been pressured before to include such information beyond reason in order to be granted access to a discussion or to have a set of ideas/concerns listened to.
none of these things should seem normal or healthy. I’ve gotten caught up in some of those mentalities multiple times and am still struggling to stay away from them. obviously in some conversations, a little indication that you aren’t a preachy outsider can be good, but rhetoric that tries to narrow down who we should listen to to “only people who have this identity and experienced this exact thing at 8 am on a tuesday and are willing to yell it into a megaphone” will not accomplish anything except for telling strangers on the internet that they are morally deplorable and unreliable if they do not allow you to invade their space and their private life.
and the consequence of this is that even though we become used to talking about personal grief in a detached, non-genuine way, when we have to engage with the complexities of people’s realities, including their grief and suffering, on a real level, we flounder. pain should never be reduced to a bargaining token the way it has been on here. a lot of us have enough anger and fatigue already, we don’t need to be egged on by peers to constantly flaunt it as a show even when we aren’t actively feeling it, or be pushed to the point where we feel foolish or less credible or relatable for wanting to heal even a bit. I’m first and foremost sad that this is some young people’s first exposure to communities and dialogues that are supposed to be overcoming some form of liberation.
all of these issues made more complex by a mix of ages and experiences and blogging styles, sometimes that complexity is dangerous (re: the age thing, like imagine growing into politics and adult social friendships on this forum. there are young teenagers whose primary source of growing into those things is here.) and sometimes it’s just annoying, but either way it’s beyond time to try to address and change some of these behaviors on a large scale. I’ve seen some individual bloggers come to similar realizations and grow and change, and those are the mutuals and friends that I’ve kept on here.
and maybe it’s a losing battle, and maybe a website where social capital / notes is a central feature will always create disconnect and divisiveness, like I know this could never be the Perfect Safe Revolutionary Space for holding conversations, but still I want to see more people realizing that some of the shit on here is not exactly something we want to be getting used to especially if we ever want to advertise leftist blogging spheres here as moral examples.
People say they’re afraid of disabilities, mental illnesses, and fat being “glorified” or “romanticized”.
Usually that means they don’t want disabled people, mentally ill people, or fat people to be normalized.
This about sums it up.
You know that scene at the end of Lord of the Flies, when the sailor turns up and he’s all, “I say, what the devil’s been going on here?” and all the boys just mill around sheepishly, their orgy of violence and destruction now embarrassingly ridiculous in the face of civilised society?
This is that.
So many people on tumblr complain about having no friends but then they reblog shit like
“If your friend doesn’t respond to your every text immediately they are not your friend”
and “A true friend would never value themselves over your sanity. Friends who ‘need space’ away from your mental health issue are TO X I C”
and “if someone doesn’t drop everything to help you when you’re in need, congrats, you just found out who your fake friend is”
and it’s like…this is why.
You had friends and then shat on them with your fucked up abusive standards.
congratulations on shutting down every mentally ill person who NEEDS this kind of attention to survive and telling us we dont deserve friends for the way our brains fuck us up and tell us that if they dont do just the smallest things they hate us and wantus to die and dont want to be our friends
i hate nts
You’re friends world doesn’t revolve around you. Honestly your response is one of the most selfish things I’ve read.
You need to realize that your mental illness can be toxic and harmful to your friends, that it can be controlling and poisonous. That your friends world doesn’t just revolve around you.
I had a friend like that once. She had her mental instabilities and she suffered from depression and things like that and so she came to me because I was her friend. I tried to be THAT friend. Whenever she would text or call me, I would be there to to talk to her, to give her advice no matter how busy i was, and i was BUSY. I genuinely wanted to help her through her problems and i felt guilty for wanting to put my academics over her.
But in school she would often complain that she had absolutely no friends, as if I didn’t exist. I tried to understand though, that sometimes it may FEEL like you don’t have anyone I suppose, so I stuck with her so she wouldn’t feel alone.
I wish I saw it then, but it was just tip of the iceberg. She was manipulating me. She would tell me secrets, and make me promise to never tell another soul. And I didn’t, cause I cared. Come to find out she went and told the whole school herself, saying the same thing to each person “promise not to tell anyone, you’re the only one I can trust”. I would tell her to go seek professional help because she was hurting herself and getting into all sorts of trouble. But she would say the same thing “I can’t, you’re the only one I can trust.” Almost every night we would talk over Facebook and she would constantly reaffirm our friendship, saying “you’re my friend, right?” almost the same way, every day, and I would always say the same thing “yes”.
This went on for about 2 years. It got to the point that I would hide my online status on facebook when I saw that she was online. I was going through hardships of my own and when I would go to her about it, she would quickly dismiss it and go on about HER problems. She would come to me with her problems, I would tell her how to solve them, she would totally disregard everything I told her and get herself into trouble again, and come crying to me for the same answers to the same problems and repeat the cycle over and over again. I would be up at midnight writing college essays, filling out college applications, looking for scholarships, and she would call me complaining about the same problems that I had given her the solutions to countless times. But I would drop everything and go through the whole spiel again, because I tried to be THAT friend. The friend that those people want. The one that would put their whole life on halt for their friends. And it did a toll on me, both physically and mentally.
I got no sleep or mental rest because I was basically juggling her problems, on top of my own, as well as school preparing for college. Every time she sensed I was sort of backing out she would bring up the fact that she would kill herself or that I was the one and only friend she had (which wasn’t true).
It was my mom who finally told me to distance myself from her, because she could see how badly this kind of relationship was affecting me, and she had been in a similar one herself, so she recognized the signs. My dad, a Star Trek fan, called people like that Klingons because they literally cling on to you and feed off of the attention you give them.
I’m not knocking people with mental disabilities or depression or anything like that, because they are serious. But don’t treat your friends like your 24/7 therapists or psychiatrists. We cannot put our whole lives on hold, jeopardize our future for you. Even therapists tell their patients “no I can’t speak with you today” or “you have to schedule an appointment, you can’t just call whenever you want”. And it’s not to be selfish. I thought it was selfish of me to prioritize my health or education over my friend who needed my help. But I realized, I’m not a therapist, and I have to look out for myself too.I hit a point for a lot of folks where I have to go “I can’t help you with that. You need to speak with a professional.” Sometimes it takes time to convince them to go but it usually helps them.
Yes, there are mental illnesses that can manifest symptoms that are these things but that doesn’t mean you embrace them and accept them as okay behaviors. They’re abusive behaviors. And you have to learn how to manage them and not let those feelings jerk you around.
And before one of you comes back with a catty “lol neurotypicals” I’ve got an anxiety disorder and it took me literally up until last year to get help for it and there were times I was abusive and my fiance is fantastic because he shut that shit down fast and helped me to rationalize what I was feeling and learn better ways to cope. It was work. It wasn’t a cake walk. But I’m a better person for it and I feel better for it and it helped me stay stable until I could get therapy and medication to get more stable.
Your friends have lives and are people. You are not the centerpoint for them. There’s a really good quote that goes “mental illness has a really sinister way of making it all about YOU” like say, with anxiety, you go to a store and feel like everyone is staring at you or judging you when in reality it’s just people shopping. They probably don’t even notice you. You hear friends talking about someone but not specifically so you think it must be you and it must be bad. It blows.
For me, I would stop myself when I had those thoughts, pause and remind myself “There’s a good chance this isn’t about you. There’s a good chance friend is just busy. Does that suck? Yeah, but it’s not their fault. They have shit to do. Let’s find something to occupy our time until they get back to us.” then I’d go play a game or something.
Learning skills like that will improve your relationships with others because you’re not only focused on you.mental illness is not an excuse to be abusive.
dear fuckwads, I’m well aware that “the real world” isn’t gonna cater to my mental illness I’ve actually been living in it as a mentally ill person for quite some time
i'm very gay. i'd like a few dollars. 