What kind of space am I making here?

[sqbr]

Any time I come across an imbroglio/wank etc on the internet part of my reaction is to think "Could that be me?"(*). Since I tend to run a mile from conflict (if someone criticises me I tend to either apologise or "agree to disagree") a lot of the time the answer is "Maybe to begin with, but it wouldn't spiral out of control like that".

But something I am in danger of doing is staying silent when I should confront people, and by my silence implicitly supporting their actions. I've been thinking about the latest explosion with this whole Elizabeth Bear thing and comparing what she did to what I might do in such a situation (I don't have such a large friendslist, and I don't think anyone has ever posted anything critical about me that my friends might takes offense at, so I can't say for sure) But I have a headache and I'm not really up to it.

Luckily On safe space and responsibility is a post which says a lot of what I wanted to, so I shall link to it instead :)

I do mean to have a serious ponder about the downsides and of being "nice" and how responsible I am for the consequences of my own non-confrontationality especially as the moderator of the comments on this lj, but not today, I think. And now for a change, saying what I actually think was the last time I tried pondering it.

(*)though the post ven ve voke up, ve had zese wodies makes the very good point that it's pretty insulting to people being racially attacked to see this educational effect as the primary effect of racism imbroglios without acknowledging the pain they cause

Comments

Re: Spaces and choices

[alias_sqbr]

Just in case you didn't see my reply to zharradan, I totally agree with you: saying bad things about Hamas is not the same as saying bad things about Palestinians. People will sometimes do the latter under pretense of doing the former but the comment didn't read that way to me, especially since it was a simple statement of fact!

(And sorry I took a while to get back to you. My tactless mood got supplemented with a killer headache and I decided you guys would probably handle this better by yourselves till I was more awake :))

Re: Spaces and choices

[chopchica.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and I think that if somebody is going to take that simple statement of fact and infer me as a Jew having issues with a terrorist group whose main mission is to *kill my entire people* as a reason to believe that I hate all Arabs, Muslims and Palestians...honestly, in that kind of situation, there's never going to be a way for us to discuss it or to agree on absolutely anything.

Aside from that, I like the stuff you've said here in the post and in comments. I'm glad I followed you over to check it out!

Re: Spaces and choices

[alias_sqbr]

I'm glad you're glad and thanks for your thinky thoughts :)