Let people grow.
When I was younger I was very right-wing. I meanâŚvery right-wing. I wonât go into detail, because Iâm very deeply ashamed of it, but whatever youâre imagining, itâs probably at least that bad. Iâve taken out a lot of pain on others; Iâve acted in ignorance and waved hate like a flag; Iâve said and did things that hurt a lot of people.
There are artefacts of my past selves online â some of which Iâve locked down and keep around to remind me of my past sins, some of which Iâve 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 thatâs not me anymore. Iâve learned so much in the last ten years. Iâve become more open to seeing things through othersâ eyes, and reforged my anger to turn on those who harm others rather than on those who simply want to exist. Iâve learned patience and compassion. Iâve learned how to recognise my privileges and listen to othersâ perspectives. Iâve 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 â with all due irony, some of the things I used to lash out at others for are intrinsic parts of myself.
You wouldnât know what I am now from what I was then. You wouldnât 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 theyâre âproblematic.â
Purity culture tells you that once someone says or does something, they can never go back on it. Thatâs a goddamn lie. While itâs true that some remain unrepentant and never change their ways and continue to harm others, itâs important to allow everyone the chance to learn from their mistakes. Saying something ignorant isnât murder. Please stop treating it that way. Let people grow.
Still call it out and question it âŚ.
Bruh. No. Listen. Call out what people do now, absolutely. If they havenât changed, call them out on their record. This post is explicitly not about people who HAVENâT changed. What this post IS saying is, if someone is making an effort to be a good person, donât go digging around in their past for evidence that they were once for what theyâre now against, or once against what theyâre now for, as âproofâ of what they âreally think,â because peopleâs opinions and beliefs can change.Â
The obsession with finding shit in someoneâs 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.
If someone has changed for the better, donât harass them about what they were like before they fuckinâ changed. Thatâs shitty and it needs to stop.
We canât change the world if we decide people canât change.
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. Iâm 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 âyouâre going to hell if you stray one inch from the righteous pathâ 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:Â empowered the far-right while sowing division everywhere.
Folks. This shit needs to stop.
