Hey, have you ever examined the deep fear, paranoia, and shame you feel whenever you try to examine or voice something you feel deep down that you're worried someone else might take issue with? Don't you feel bad about all the subtle ways it renders you less able to know yourself, love yourself, express yourself, and advocate for yourself? If you're thinking about all that social anxiety horror that Super Eye Patch Wolf just talked about, and if you're so utterly afraid of standing out or going against the crowd--this is related to that.
It's probably because you think it's good to call someone out before it's proven that they are knowingly and willfully causing harm. It's probably because you think people should be punished if they harm someone period, even if it was by accident or without knowing. Even if it might have just been a misunderstanding and no real harm done was anyone's fault. And it's only fair that the same standard applies to you as well, isn't it?
It's probably because you've internalized that your value as a human being deserving of love and community can be reduced or eliminated if you say something wrong enough loudly enough. It's probably because, even if you do not ascribe to thought crime, and you agree that we should not demonize ourselves or each other for our own thoughts and feelings as long as we put in the work to be good with our actions, you tripped at the finish line when you forgot about the basic fact of human psychology that we can't translate negative thoughts into positive action without being able to speak about it openly in a space where others will truly understand how we feel, and not just skip straight to the part where feeling that way is already cringe before you've actually fully internalized your own growth past it.
It's probably because you have privilege as someone who has ever had access to real friends/family who stand by you no matter what heinous shit you say or do, and that privilege has enabled you to learn a lot very quickly about how to appear as a good person in society, because those friends/family allowed you to actually feel supported as a human being with feelings before you knew better, which is a hard prerequisite to ever knowing better, and you have not examined that privilege.
It's probably because you think you can sniff out who's good or bad just on vibes and act as judge, jury, and executioner, instead of focusing on harm reduction for anyone who you know was hurt and learning some hard realities about human interaction. For example, being ignorant is not the same as acting on that ignorance. Voicing ignorance without aggression and then being willing to learn something is actually a good thing for others to view in public, because it teaches valuable lessons to everyone paying attention, and anyone who feels validated and empowered to be shitty from such an exchange was just looking for an excuse.
I think this knowledge is something that we feminists should stand for. Anti-militancy. I know it's hard to tell here on this gremlin-ass modern internet for many of us due to circumstances beyond our control, but when you actually go outside and have friends IRL, you'll notice that feminine people out there already understand most of this.
Remember when we used to talk about being tolerant of everything except intolerance? Well, this is part of that. You're not supposed to dehumanize someone and ignore their feelings just for sounding racist one time. You're supposed to try to educate them or, failing that, practice harm reduction (which can escalate into a callout if they're truly a bad actor). Punching nazis is for when you literally fucking know that someone is willfully being harmful (perhaps because they're platforming hate). Most of them don't just cosplay as nazis in easy ways to pick out. That's why fascists are so insidious and good at infiltrating spaces. Each of us has a desperate hope that I am the one, it's me, I can be able to know at a glance who is good or bad, without taking the time and effort to get to know them first. And they prey on that. They use that to make us fight each other instead of them.
"Oh, but Gwemmie, does this mean you're defending X or Y person?" I dunno, how does their situation compare to what I just said? This post was inspired by the many times I have been dogpiled and ostracized for openly using language in autistic ways that have been confused for bigotries or insensitivities that just weren't in my speech or my thoughts (usually because those doing the dogpiling put words in my mouth, didn't parse a sentence correctly, or just decided to be ableist and go off vibes instead of what I very openly say). If you come in here thinking I'm making this post to subtweet about anyone else, you're part of the problem.
