Moments of Permanence - I really prefer being able to identify the person screwing up as a person not me

From: sami Date: April 24th, 2009 08:59 am (UTC) (Link)

A sidenote: Where I am genuinely irked by the event, and somewhat hurt, I'm realising, is that the response I got very clearly implied that the other person thinks that, because I said something about an entirely unrelated topic she found offensive, it's okay to call me a racist. (Her final line said she didn't want to hear my views about anti-racism, on the assumption that they would, of course, be offensive.) Which... dude, no. I said nothing about or related to race, nothing. Effectively calling me racist on the basis of that? Pure ad hominem attack, unjustified, and gratuitously insulting.

Which I have not brought up with the person in question, because it's not a line of discussion I can see going anywhere fruitful, but it's irksome indeed. I will cop to being criticised where it's justified, but the discussion wasn't about race, I made no mention of anything even vaguely related to race... So that part, I don't accept.

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From: sqbr Date: April 25th, 2009 06:09 am (UTC) (Link)

Do they know you?

Because something I took a long time to get my head around but now find oddly comforting which may or may not be relevant:
From a stranger's POV I am indistinguishable from a clever troll saying the same words. So if they think the worst of me it's not an insult to me, Sophie, the complex 3D individual who deserves the benefit of the doubt because of all the awesome things I have done and said, it's an insult to some random stranger on the internet of whom they know very little. And I've seen enough people start off sounding very much like me then go on to turn out to be racist/sexist etc trolls/idiots etc that I have a moderate amount of sympathy for people thinking the worst of this random stranger "sqbr".

The archetypical example of this was once when I made some remark about the differences in how racism works in Australia and America and someone replied with "Racism exists on a global level *insert link*". I got very offended because, hello, I never said it didn't! My very premise assumed that Australia is racist! But then I noticed that EVERY OTHER TIME I saw a white person talk about "the differences in how racism works in Australia and America" their eventual conclusion was "..and so Australia is not as racist as America", often with the subtext that we're not really racist at all.
Every. Single. Time.
And so I now understand that if that single remark was all you knew about me, it WAS fair to assume I was probably trying to deny that racism exists in Australia, even though that's not what I said or what I believe. (Of course this does mean I've been putting off talking about the subject until I feel I can express it just right)

Unfortunately once someone has interpreted your words that way it's hard to change their mind without sounding defensive, I usually make an apology for the perceived sentiments then make a dignified retreat to try and figure out how to avoid the situation in future.

Anyway, whether or not that's what happened it's never pleasant to have people think the worst of you, so I can see how that would make the whole thing nastier for you.

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