Moments of Permanence - On differences in oppression, derailment, and the hierarchies of hurt

From: lady-ganesh.livejournal.com Date: April 6th, 2009 07:29 pm (UTC) (Link)

the Internet is real life. The people you're talking to are real people.

I feel like branding this on my forehead or something. Here from rydra_wong's linkspam; this is very nicely put.

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From: tevriel.livejournal.com Date: April 7th, 2009 06:30 am (UTC) (Link)

Thank you.

Of course, when I made the post I hadn't entirely anticipated having an active example of the principles I was discussing take place in the comments, but such is life - sometimes you make a post about derailing with a sidenote about it being important to acknowledge that even friends you love and admire can be flagrantly wrong in public, and then a friend you love and admire posts a flagrantly wrong, derailing comment, and oh, the richness of irony. Tasty, delicious irony.

I kind of want to seek out Elizabeth Bear and be all SEE? THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT, this is how you see a friend be Wrong On The Internet and you and mutual friends jointly intervene to tell him that he's wrong and why. (Several people involved in the argument don't know him outside of comments to this post, but others, like me, have known him for many years.)

But then I'd be at risk of being just like her and her performative engagement at the outset of all this, when this wasn't about Setting An Example, it was about standing up for principle and about not letting someone I've known for so many years make a fool of himself... and besides, I still love and admire my friend and don't want to imply that he's in any way like hers, because her friends are jerks. And while mine are patently not all flawless diamonds of social perfection, they're still better than hers.

PS: I love your icon and its text. Hardison is awesome beyond words.

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From: alias_sqbr Date: April 7th, 2009 11:16 am (UTC) (Link)

sometimes you make a post about derailing with a sidenote about it being important to acknowledge that even friends you love and admire can be flagrantly wrong in public

Did you see how a while ago I made a post specifically about calling out friends and had someone replicate the example I gave, down to offending the same people?

On the plus side when this stuff happens one is (a) in the right headspace and (b) confident your friends had fair warning they'd be called out :)

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From: tevriel.livejournal.com Date: April 7th, 2009 11:25 am (UTC) (Link)

Ooh, no, I missed that one. Link?

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From: alias_sqbr Date: April 7th, 2009 11:38 am (UTC) (Link)

http://alias-sqbr.livejournal.com/206161.html

Ah, back when RaceFail09 was just "This Elizabeth Bear Thing"...

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From: tevriel.livejournal.com Date: April 7th, 2009 12:12 pm (UTC) (Link)

ah, right. Also when I was kind of avoiding difficult things on LJ. *goes to read*

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