It's time for all of us to get uncomfortable. It's actually past time.

That doesn't allay my concern.

Instead of speaking from a position of moral authority, Glam, perhaps you could talk a bit about the value of this work for you personally. You've alluded to the fact that you've been called out and had to confront your own issues. (As have I, several times, and am willing to address within the context of this discussion if you like. I'm not trying to single you out.)

What were those issues, and what were your lightbulb moments or epiphanies that changed your perspective?

I'm not doing this here right now. We are discussing the creation of a new thread, not my personal experiences with call outs. But I will issue one right now. You are privileged in society in many ways so it feels out of bounds for you to push back against a thread dedicated to minority voices and ask one of those minority voices (me, a lesbian) to educate you. If the thread is created and you choose not to participate, that's your choice.

I have to say, David, that your comment is pinging me in all kinds of not nice ways. Why should the feelings of the majority be prioritized over the lived experiences of minorities? One is discomfort while the other is safety. There is a difference.

I realize I'm pinging you, but I'm not disputing the value of this work. I'm questioning the approach of doing it in a separate thread and what that dynamic would be.

I can't really imagine it being other than censorious, and I think you're fine with that.

To be honest, you're pinging me by treating this like a workshop that you're leading with pre-set parameters instead of discussing it as a community.

Which is why I asked you to relate it to your personal experience, and have offered to do the same.

David, there's nothing in Glam's proposal that suggests this thread would be exclusively or even primarily used as a place to resolve conflicts.

Polter-cow drove people away silently because they didn't want to deal with the emotional labor of parsing his microaggressions or having a confrontation, or dragging it through the community. So people just left.

Isn't this an argument in favor of a dedicated space to raise uncomfortable issues?

As I proposed the thread, I am actively discussing it here. I am no authority on race, ableism, and any other minority group I am not a part of and I'm not claiming to be. It's problematic that you think it's censoring someone to tell them that using a damaging slur is harmful to a minority group. What even is this?

If this thread is put up then is there an obligation for the person being called out to go there and do what?

I don't think that's the idea at all

I'm not doing this here right now. We are discussing the creation of a new thread, not my personal experiences with call outs.

I'm asking you to articulate the value you've found in this process. That would be more persuasive to me.

But I will issue one right now. You are privileged in society in many ways so it feels out of bounds for you to push back against a thread dedicated to minority voices and ask one of those minority voices (me, a lesbian) to educate you.

If it's out of bounds for me to even ask questions then I can't see how this proposed thread would function as anything other than a penalty box.

You seem to think that all of these issues are cut and dried, but some of them are more nuanced than that and deserve conversation.

I am not looking to persuade you. You are either committed to being anti-racist/ableist/etc. or you aren't.

It is a lot of difficult emotional work to address your own privilege, and while you can require that in a workplace environment, I don't know if that's the remit of this community.

But I mean... you wouldn't have to go into the thread if you didn't want to, right? And just not having it wouldn't/shouldn't prevent a call-out. And, ultimately, the call-out-ee needs to decide for themselves whether there's merit to the call-out and whether there's something to learn. So, I think the full complement of responses is available -- like, a blip of a couple of posts of "Oh, got it. I'm sorry, thanks for sharing that with me," in an existing thread, or, "Can we take this offline? I'm not comfortable doing this on the board," or, "Oh, it's ON! Meet me in the Throw-Down thread at high noon (uh, Eastern, so 9a your time. Does that work for you?)!" I'm kidding about the last one. Though, if someone wanted to talk more, there'd be a space for it, even if the aggrieved person didn't want to be the specific educator. This makes sense in my head.

But I think no one is obligated to settle something with someone on-board, or in-thread, or at all, really. If someone calls me out, and I genuinely want to discuss further to understand, I think asking to take it to a thread like that would be great, and whoever called me out could come or not, depending on their tolerance for discussion of the topic. And anyone else with an opinion could join in. But I'm not under any obligation to discuss it. A thread to talk about difficult shit, though, I think, is a good idea. I guess I'm not thinking of it as a Throw-Down thread, and I don't expect it to become one.

Yeah, and I agree with Jessica (what else is new?) that maybe this would've helped not lose people to P-C's behavior. I can't speak for them, but would it have helped to have someplace to go and discuss the things he was (not being?) called out for? I mean, I know he was called out on some things, but I had NO idea about the full extent of things. Not that it was anyone's duty to inform me, but I felt awful for not knowing what was happening to community members.

ETA: If you were watching that in real time, it only took me three tries to get the quick-edit right!

I'm not entirely sure what the thread would be used for, in general. Like, just sharing resources like from SURJ or other groups, or are people supposed to volunteer to do education/moderate discussions/etc? I don't think you can just open up a space and have work that is this hard magically happen there without a lot of concerted effort. Maybe people are ready to put in that effort and want to do it here.