We make a decision about how we stand on this issue as a community and then we accept the results. If the decision is that we put a high priority on truly listening and respecting when someone from a marginalized group speaks up then we also need to accept that this carries the consequence that we might see someone leave or curtail their involvement here.
If we make the decision that we want to prioritize the appearance that we all just get along, then that too carries the consequence that we might see others leave or curtail their involvement here. I know I’d would have an impact on how I feel about the community and my involvement.
Well said, and agree. Best to literally make the decision, as in, put it up for a vote somehow? By "somehow" I mean find the language; I'm sure those who have had a lot of involvement with this via work, etc. might have good language, or even examples, we can lift/use. Or careful googling, for that matter. Put it up in the affirmative sense, then vote "yes" or "no" depending on one's position.
And I think Sophia suggested, put some useful links after the statement - definitely the links Glam has shared, for example.
Those are my thoughts on moving this to action. Other thoughts/ideas for same?
But I think a space has opened up between our understanding of acting in Good Faith here, and how it has evolved out in the world. Specifically, people who have been given a lot of focus to dismantling privilege and microaggression in their work, community or personal lives have come to the valuation that Impact is more important than Intent.
That people with good intentions can still cause harm because they haven't really examined their prejudices, biases, language, privilege et al. That this causes harm within the community, often to the people who are most vulnerable, and it's often let-slide and gone unaddressed.
This is such a good summation of a dynamic I'm seeing in practically every space I participate in these days. Would you mind if I shared it? I think it could be helpful and clarifying in some discussions that come up at my work and church, for example.
So, what happens if we get to 3...
1. Lead the original misstepper to understanding and apology (ideal outcome).
2. Lead to the original misstepper being too uncomfortable to continue in the community (it sucks, but it's worse IMO to harm minorities and cause them to leave the community).
3. The original misstepper does not apologize, and feels like they did nothing wrong.
I think this is particularly tricky if the misstepper doesn't actually repeat the original offense ever again. (So you can't really argue that they're engaging in willful, trollish behavior.)
That is to say, what if they change their behavior but do not make a public apology or contrition?
I don't think we can enforce contrition, and I think any attempt to do so would be extremely damaging to the community as a whole. You can expect it, but you can't demand it.
I can come up with a lot of instances where this might come up.
I'll start with one that's not theoretical. Atropa mentioned an instance in another community where she was called out for using the word "Crazy" which was said to be ableist. Atropa disagreed.
I had a similar discussion with a Buffista on FB. askye objected to me using the word "insanity" to describe one of Trump's policies, saying it was ableist.
I'm mindful not to use that phrasing around askye because it offends or upsets her. But I don't plan on culling words like crazy, insanity or madness from my vocabulary and I don't feel contrite about it. I think those words are so broad and have such range of meanings and nuances that the negative connotation is not the limit of the word.
If I say, "all cops are bastards" somebody can say, "Hey, Sail was a military police officer, and Nicole's husband is a LEO. That's offensive."
Okay. But what if I say, "American policing is inherently racist in practice and history. Anybody who chooses to be a LEO is racist by their actions." Somebody could raise the same objection, but now we've really narrowed what's possible to discuss, and not in a positive way. (I'm not taking that stand, btw, I'm just saying it's a legitimate point of discussion.)
These aren't just harmful words but differing points of view.
Somebody can take offense because I use the word "Goddammit." Taking the lord's name in vain is offensive to a number of religious practitioners.
But what if i don't want to give ANY religion that much headspace or control of my language?
Do I need to defer to the person who took offense and apologize to them?
If I say, "I don't think you can be a Feminist and anti-abortion" somebody could easily say, "Hey, I'm a Feminist and I'm pro-life and that's really offensive."
Not every offense is a matter of a privileged party damaging a vulnerable group. Offense can also be taken as a matter of legitimate, defensible difference.
I don't think these are just hypotheticals, but rather likely instances we would have to deal with at some point down the line if we choose to take a path of hard/bright line policing of language.
Or to require apologies or contrition.
I think the only way this community can address this is by establishing an expectation of proper behavior here (by means of this discussion, and incorporating that into the FAQ/guidelines), and letting the force of social expectation (calling people out in-thread) play out.
Anything more rules bound than that is going to quickly get into parsing and adjudicating ambiguous instances in a way that will be very damaging.
One result of that, though, could be...
4. The person who originally voiced their offense, does not feel like the misstepper properly apologized. As a consequence they don't feel heard, or they don't feel safe, and they might choose to leave the board.
Glam and ND seem to be taking a position that this is unacceptable.
However, I would say that in the same way we cannot require somebody to feel contrite, we cannot ensure that everybody feels safe. (Because safety is a subjective experience and different people process that feeling in different ways to different standards.)
But we can guarantee that they would be defended. That the community would stand up for them and ask for accountability.
We can't make people feel contrite.
We can't make people feel safe.
We're not in control of other people's emotional responses. We can only control our community's active response, and establish standards that we all agree on.
That is not going to satisfy all parties at all times, but it will (imperfectly) address the vast majority of issues that would come up here.
Why would we accept that imperfection? Because any formal enforcement will quickly descend into ambiguous situations which will be impossible to judge.
Glam and ND seem to be taking a position that this is unacceptable.
I do not speak for Glam, but I can say from my side I think you are misinterpreting me a bit. I'm in line with what you are saying at the end. We can't make people feel contrite or safe or any of those things. These are not things that can be done through a set of diligent rules in my opinion and I've actually not been advocating setting up rules to that effect. I'm saying much of what you are at the end. This is a question of where each person stands on these things, and how those align with our chosen community on this board. I think each of us has an internal compass and we do lean towards discussion and learning, but at the bottom of things each person needs to look at the choices the community makes and if they aren't working then they either work to see if they can change viewpoints, or they make the decision to move on. This can and will happen on both sides of most issues. This community is not homogenous, while we tend to lean in the same direction in a broad sense, we are also a group of smart, talky people with a large variety of viewpoints. With that being the case, we will always have different views on how things should be prioritized.
I agree with that, too, David. My "move to action" post is just how do people want to modify (or, do people want to modify and how?) the FAQ or wherever this wants to be. I don't think codifying how someone has to respond to a call-out makes any kind of sense for all the reasons you point out. I also think providing a link or two to how it can be done if one chooses to might be helpful.
Or, is it sufficient to just continue on with community life having had this discussion and acknowledged these things?
