call_kotaku
Member
Well as much as I think besada has a scary avatar, and would kick my ass, I actually challenged if not disagreed with his responses to me. At least parts of them. I agree on remarks around location and what he said about a range of options.
Absolutely, 1000%. Brexit had open displays of bigotry and racism on the freaking news, and from the likes of Farage. Just as America had Trump going around saying things all displayed live if not on the news. It empowered tons of nasty people, and that is seen in spiking hate crimes and celebrations of intolerance in peoples faces.
The left is never to blame for the assholes and nasties in the world on the right. That is essentially blanket victim blaming. Or I should say liberals aren't to blame, as the left can have some crazy people on it as well (when you go faaaar left). My attacks on the left are more so about why people are leaving the left, or becoming disenfranchised due to some of the hostility that attacks them in my eyes, unjustly. I've always said it's just my opinion, but at the end of the day people are going to speculate on why in the UK and now the US the liberals either didn't turn out to vote, or failed to amass enough of the vote. To be liberal is suppose to try and inspect a whole load of opinions in search for truth. In relation to this topic that truth for me is recognising that not everyone approaches this topic in the same way and that isn't inherently wrong, or worth shaming for. There is many different reasons including location/geography why an individual may tackle intolerance in a certain way. Heck, right down to personality. I tried to anecdotally show due to my chosen career path I am going to potentially end up interacting with heinous displays of discrimination if not violence/murder. I am purposefully choosing that as I feel fit for such a role, but that's essentially my point, individuals with individual agency may all try different things. Allies can be people who don't think 1:1 as you do.
The point is that "treating racists with humanity" ends up meaning "act like they have a reasonable argument" regardless of your intentions, and that directly undermines the work that activists and civil rights advocates are putting in. In that case, you aren't an ally, even if you think you are, because you are actively working against the people you are trying to help even if you want to believe that you are doing the right thing.
The left isn't driving those people away, those people went away when things finally got urgent and we asked them to either do something or stop holding us back. It's not helpful when people who are our "allies" undermine us and snipe at us from the sidelines while happily reinforcing the idea that the people who really give a shit do it because we want to be smug and superior. I don't understand how the response to "please stop asking us to choose because we'll definitely choose not to support you" is anything other than "so you weren't ever going to support us in the first place?". That's why moderates get such a mad rap, because they think their cheerleading during the off-years makes up for them basically agreeing with conservatives that liberals are all crazy once things actually matter.
That's exactly what you're doing when you, regardless of your intent, come into these threads just to drop a "I support you people but all opinions matter and wow leftists amirite". It reads as nothing but passive aggressive attempts at undermining the urgency of people's need for action and support, and I hope you understand why people get mad at that.