It’s sunny and cold and it’s possible I used all my wisdom already on Spoutible this morning, but maybe there are some bits still floating around.
Yesterday there was an incredibly antisemitic poster, one who–though he thought he was being clever in how he phrased it–was calling for a genocide of Jews. A pretty familiar call, overall.
People recognized the overt antisemitism, some responding, some reporting and blocking, some all of the above, and by this morning, he was gone. Which is remarkable and unique to Spoutible.
But it turns out a number of people were surprised to find they were mutually following him. They thought he’d gone from nothing to full throttle in no time but that is rarely the case.
Often with people like that, there are bread crumbs of the bigotry that sometimes people don’t even realize they’re buying into. Coded language, doublespeak, ideas that are sold in an innocuous way but at their heart actually nestle the hatred in a cloud of deniability.
Often, when pointing these things out, the members of the targeted group are told they are “overreacting,” the “person didn’t mean it that way,” or that it’s not “fill in the bigotry.”
A reminder that someone outside of a targeted group is not the arbiter of what is harmful to that group, and then we will continue.
So the bread crumbs are ignored, noticed and discarded, or devoured.
We need to think critically in these times of slow burn indoctrination, where people test the waters and keep going if they don’t get pushback. We need to listen when someone tells us “this is harmful.”
If we’re not fighting it, we’re perpetuating it.
I’ve never been on a social media site that dispatches antisemitism this way, let alone anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and racism. Especially the racism.
The racism on twitter is absolutely revolting in its depth and scope and longevity, where I’ve watched people be targeted for days, sending reports that were either ignored or found not to violate the rules.
The big stuff is easy to see, it’s easy to distinguish. We have to start recognizing the feelers too.
These conversations are uncomfortable and awkward. Often people who are improving all the time feel bad for not seeing the signs or not realizing.
I’m not asking for that, I don’t want that, it doesn’t get us anywhere. I only want us to learn, to take this experience on board, to integrate it into our perspectives going forward, our tolerance for bigotry going forward.
And with that, I am out of wisdom. Have a great Wednesday.
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