#syntaxblk

1.) These people aren’t leftists. They have no coherent economic analysis. Their politics are an aestheticized jumble of “social justice” causes, and as such, they are laser-focused on speech acts, to the exclusion of all else. The only things they are capable of talking about or criticizing are the ways other people speak online: who is or isn’t “allowed” to speak on a topic, what words they are or aren’t “allowed” to use (see: “say her name”)—and that’s it. When it comes to the real world, they’ve got nothing.

2.) They are also hopelessly identitarian, and this stems from their adoption of afropessimist philosophy. You find similar “radical pessimist” notions in TERFism, third worldism, and certain strains of anarchism. The “oppressor class” is evil, which is why they oppress; white people are colonizers because white people are bad, not because colonization is profitable. This is an anti-materialist position that cannot create an effective politics. It’s a disease of powerlessness. It’s contemptible where it’s not just sad.

3.) #oh wow here we go calling black people psyops

That’s an inflammatory opening, and it’s meant to be. I have personally been accused of “wanting” to use the N-word, or I’ve just had it put in my mouth by an interlocutor. Syntaxblk has tagged all of her callout posts (including the one about me) with the acronym “K.A.N.,” which apparently stands for “kill all n****rs,” implying that everyone disagreeing with her is a sympathizer to such a statement.

Now, I’ve never used the N-word as a slur in my life, and I’ve certainly never hurled it at someone in an online slapfight. As far as I can tell, not a single person involved in this has used the N-word either. And obviously, not a single person has advocated for anything even slightly close to killing all Black people.

So, what gives? I suspect that there are two parts: persecution complex and cynical rhetorical move.

On the one hand, this group of bloggers display a deep and persistent persecution complex, because they’re afro-pessimists. Any disagreement with their racial politics by non-black people is equivalent to membership in the KKK. All forms of “anti-blackness” are equally virulent and threatening, with no granularity. I’ve called this a “disease of powerlessness” before, and you don’t have to take my word for it. Fluoresensitive recently claimed that Black Americans ”have literally no power in America,” which (while obviously not true) does absolve her of any responsibility for her words or actions, since she is definitionally powerless. A persecution complex naturally arises; these Black bloggers insist that they’re totally helpless, and so all opposition to their ideas collapses into a single mass of “anti-blackness.” Pity them for that.

On the other, fluoresensitive and her friends are also seasoned grifters, and so we can’t overlook the intentional ways in which they put the N-word into people’s mouths in order to intimidate, and to shut down conversation. On several occasions, I’ve written something expressing a civil disagreement with a political idea, and the response (in this case from porkue) was literally “did you just call me a n****r?” That is a calculated and cynical ploy. It’s also extremely shitty, and I resent it, because I didn’t and wouldn’t do that.

But the implication is enough, because of the way whisper campaigns and callouts function. The accusation can be screenshotted and passed around as evidence! This has also happened to me before.