@izmarvelous said: âTumblr would likely be part of the groupâs who would say her apology is fake and Mark her as bad foreverâ - One of the big points of her talk was not assigning bad motives to people. If this is your first response, it might be a good idea to watch her talk again.Â
You misunderstand me. She mentions that there were/are people who didnât believe her apology and who still think sheâs bad because of her past. Iâm talking about when I see that on here where we have a very real problem in SJ circles on this site where one fuckup dooms someone forever and no apology is ever accepted as real because if they are forgiven we cannot be mad at them anymore, and being mad is the only way you can show you care about a thing. Repeatedly on this site I see people say something that is either misunderstood or twisted purposefully in order to sound problematic, and then even when they explain what they actually meant over and over again, or explain that they are actually part of x group and so their opinion isnât coming from a perspective of oppressor and hateful ignorance (like disabled people constantly accused of being neurotypical for talking about their own experiences, or queer people being accused of being -phobic, etc), theyâre dogpiled on and harassed as if they had never tried to explain anything at all, because what they really meant doesnât matter, that they are real people doesnât matter, itâs the image of them in that thread that becomes set in stone so that people can be mad at that concept but pretend theyâre fighting the bigger evil by directing it at a real person. They become a symbol instead of people.
Whether or not someone was misunderstood, or really did say/believe/do something actually awful, I donât often see them given space to explain and learn and apologize because theyâre seen as bad forever, and that doesnât allow us to make positive change at all and itâs why I try to have patience when someone on the internet pisses me off. I try to remember that they are people and that itâs very possible that they believe that they are the only right, that theyâre doing the right thing even if they believe it justifies their own cruelty and rudeness, and thatâs how I try to teach, learn, and plant seeds in every interaction.
