How Did You Get Here?

actually wrong in this

one, but may I add

me: sweet hit me with the good stuff

media: so there's this marginalized underclass of people, right?

me: okay

media: and they're like, stigmatized for something that's mostly an aspect of how they are born, or where they're from, or they're badly misunderstood, right?

me: yup, got it, I'm with ya

media: so these people are rebelling against the current social order, because it's the instrument of their suffering

me: oh good great sure

media: but also they're violent and deranged and need to be stopped

me: ...what

media: yeah they're going too far, they're trying to overthrow the system and assassinate the nice cop trying to help them and also they burned down an orphanage

me: ...why? would they burn down an orphanage??

media: extremism is bad

me: still not seeing what this has to do with their fight though???

media: also now they've shot a dog. oops they shot another dog

me: what?! why? I though their motive was to overthrow oppression??

media: yes but their suffering has also made them evil

me: ...???

media: don't worry though, the good guys will defeat them and restore the status quo

me: the status quo that's been killing people?

media: well it turns out it was only killing the kinds of awful people who burn down orphanages and shoot dogs :)

me: oh. this is actually a pro-authoritarian story, isn't it?

STARTING OFF. BAD.

Why is that you might ask. Well you see. There are many Rules and Laws and Regulations about the use and exchange of personal healthcare data.

Which is why of course this guy, seeing a well-thought-out and tested technical position, decided "what if i get all of them at once and also the 2FA codes and stored them ALL in the same place with no encryption whatsoever"

When I was younger I was very right-wing. I mean…very right-wing. I won’t go into detail, because I’m very deeply ashamed of it, but whatever you’re imagining, it’s probably at least that bad. I’ve taken out a lot of pain on others; I’ve acted in ignorance and waved hate like a flag; I’ve said and did things that hurt a lot of people.

There are artefacts of my past selves online – some of which I’ve locked down and keep around to remind me of my past sins, some of which I’ve scrubbed out, some of which are out of my grasp. If I were ever to become famous, people could find shit on me that would turn your stomach.

But that’s not me anymore. I’ve learned so much in the last ten years. I’ve become more open to seeing things through others’ eyes, and reforged my anger to turn on those who harm others rather than on those who simply want to exist. I’ve learned patience and compassion. I’ve learned how to recognise my privileges and listen to others’ perspectives. I’ve learned to stand up for others, how to hear, how to help, how to correct myself. And I learned some startling shit about myself along the way – with all due irony, some of the things I used to lash out at others for are intrinsic parts of myself.

You wouldn’t know what I am now from what I was then. You wouldn’t know what I was then from what I am now.

It distresses me deeply to think of someone dredging up my dark, awful past and treating me as though that furiously hateful person is still me. It distresses me to see others dredging up the past for anyone who has made efforts to become a better person, out of some sick obsession with proving they’re “problematic.”

The obsession with finding shit in someone’s past and then claiming that a questionable or even sordid past negates all possibility of a good present needs to become extinct. Gold-star activism and purity culture are bullshit and we need to collectively reject the fuck out of them.

We really need to start asking where this purity bullshit came from. I’m not  Christian and was not raised Christian but there has been a lot evidence that much of gold star activism and purity culture originated in of evangelical youth movements and then infiltrated progressive left-wing and center-left politics when those youth left their churches but failed to leave behind the black-n-white puritanical “you’re going to hell if you stray one inch from the righteous path” style of thinking they were taught.

I distinctly remember some conversations I had in the late 00s and very early 2010s with long time social justice activists who were baffled and disturbed by the new crop of youth activists who were practicing something that was decidedly NOT social justice despite stealing that phrase from us.

In the decade and a half that has passed since then, all of this gold-star activism and purity culture has done exactly what I predicted back then: empowered the far-right while sowing division everywhere.

A random person who had a moderately shady past or fucked up views before shouldn’t need to flog themselves to show how penitent they are beyond just doing better now, just to be able to live their life in peace, but if someone is campaigning to get political power and all they have to say for their life up to that point being a field of red flags, it isn’t enough for them to say “well I’m not like that now” if they haven’t actually achieved anything that makes up for it in the opposite direction.

OP turned reblogs off but as someone with a crazy wicked scar that's been called "body horror" a few times, I really wanted this on my blog