#brute reason

Holy shit, do I love Miri for compiling all of this. If ya’ll don’t already follow Brute Reason across their many, many platforms, you need to. 

Baby Problem Steps: Atheist Edition

There are a lot of reasons to point out media that fail this or that marginalized group.  The euphemism “problematic” acknowledges media that traffic in stereotypes, show gut-wrenching physical or emotional violence for shock value, discuss the mere existence of marginalized groups as though it were funny enough to be the punchline of jokes, or otherwise promote the deadly ideals of kyriarchy. …

^From Brute Reason.  An important article, good for highly privileged foolios like myself.  A good excerpt (because I can’t choose the one they use above):

I’m happy to grant that many of these suggestions about how to treat people with particular identities should and do apply to pretty much all human interaction. Don’t touch white people’s hair without their permission either. Don’t ask cis people about their genitals either. Sure.

Brute Reason and  Ijeoma Oluo have both recently written articles which suggest doxxing shouldn't be done by advocates for social justice.  And because this is coming from people with human hearts and sharp pens, I'm about 75% convinced.  (Whines about doxxing from abusers carry zero weight with me.)

But still, it's obvious that there is no justice and no peace coming from the authorities and corporations that should be working to stem the tide of abuse - at least, what's happening is not fast enough and is too little, too late.  If exposing someone to consequences of, say, bullying a teen to suicide can only be achieved through doxxing, what recourse do we have right now?

Here are a few items, all fairly unrelated.

From tumblr user hiccupkin, this: if you only respect trans people’s genders when they’re good people, that means you don’t really respect trans people’s genders. that’s conditional, and it’s false.

by all means hold racist, misogynist, ableist, abusive, etc trans people responsible for their bigotry but don’t bring their gender into it (unless their gender is part of it, such as a non-native person calling themself two-spirit)

in doing that you reveal that you believe cisness is fundamentally valid whereas transness needs to be earned

...to which I say this same principle could very easily be drawn more broadly. It's obvious in the treatment of African Americans - "I'm not racist against the good ones" = you're still racist.

From Brute Reason on FreethoughtBlogs, this: I think the problem goes beyond that. If we make a rule that says, “Doxxing/abuse/harassment/threats/shaming is okay when the target did something really bad,” then everyone gets to interpret “really bad” for themselves, and you may not like that interpretation. For instance, there are people online who earnestly believe that I am a threat to their livelihood and to the continued functioning of our society. Many MRAs also believe that feminists pose a serious and imminent threat to their physical safety. Surely by their standards I have done plenty of “really bad” things, such as writing widely read articles about feminism.

I cannot overstate the importance of pointing out that they really believe this. They’re not just saying it to get some sort of Points online. They’re not lying. (At least, not all of them.) They believe this as truly and completely as I believe that inequality exists and must be fixed, that there is no god, that I love my friends and family.

Think about your strongest convictions and how real, how powerful your belief in them is. Now, imagine that someone believes with an equal conviction that I am (or you are) a terrible person who poses a threat to them and to everything they love and care about. Imagine that we have all spent years cheerfully promoting the idea that “Doxxing/abuse/harassment/threats/shaming is okay when the target did something really bad.”

Now try to reason this person out of threatening me or you with death or worse. Try to convince them that if they obtain access to our silly Amazon purchases or private emails, they shouldn’t post them online. Try to convince them that if they have information that could destroy our lives if made public, they should keep it to themselves.

This is why I don’t feel safe in online spaces that promote doxxing, abuse, harassment, threats, or shaming against anyone, no matter how much I fucking despise the person they’re doing it to.

Read the whole article. It's the first time I've ever been given pause about the doxxing of bad people. I am not 100% convinced yet - I think any cyber-abuser who has threatened the life & safety of someone is unlikely to face justice except through extralegal means. I also think shaming is too effective of a tool for education to give up on, especially in a world lousy with injustice. But I could be wrong.

From Dean Obeidallah at the Daily Beast (someone I'm certainly in profound disagreement with on some major issues), this: People keep asking me why does Pam Geller spew so much anti-Muslim crap? Is it part of her work as a pro-Israel activist? Did she once get food poisoning at a Middle Eastern restaurant? Is it simply because she really, really hates Muslims?

Probably all the above, but one other thing is certain: Geller gets paid pretty well to demonize Muslims. I’m talking to the tune of $200,000 a year...

In fact, many of the people identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and the Center for American Progress (CAP) as the leaders of the anti-Muslim industry in America are paid well for their efforts. I’m talking so much money I almost want to start hating on Muslims—and I’m Muslim.

As I've said, I'm certain islamophobia is real, putting me in profound disagreement (there I go again) with many of my fellow atheists. Whenever there's a window for some jerk to try to achieve power, they do so by selling hate. And despite the good things possible with democracy, it's ripe for that kind of exploitation.

From user Archaic on tumblr, this: v for vendetta is a film with a female protagonist that criticises capitalism, condemns pedophilia, encourages the viewers to question their governments, has a central plot about how LGBT people are condemned in right wing societies (more than three LGBT characters are in it) and was directed by a trans woman and her brother.

why has this become a fuckboy classic

The Fedora Delusion. If something feels right to you, and you see yourself as super duper clever, then REASONS! Cognitive dissonance floats away and anything can be anything you want it to be. Same principle as people believing the bible advocates love, just being held by someone who hates religion.

And lastly - for now - tumblr user Bird Boned has this: ...This reminds me of a discussion that I read once which said Lord of the Flies would have turned out a hell of a lot differently if it was a private school of young girls (who are expected to be responsible and selfless instead), or a public school where the children weren’t all from an inherently entitled, emotionally stunted social class (studies have shown that people in lower socioeconomic classes show more compassion for others).

Or that the same premise with children raised in a different culture than the toxic and opressive British Empire and it’s emphasis on social hierarchy and personal wealth and status.

And that what we perceive as the unchangable truth deep inside humanity because of things like Lord of the Flies and the Stanford Prison Experiment, is just the base truths about what happens when you remove any accountabilty controlling one social group with an overwhelming sense of entitlement and an inability to feel compassion.