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

Considered reply

[alias_sqbr]

First, I think you've missed the significant thing emily_shore was apologising for: it wasn't just that she didn't call out the anti-semitism, it's that she let it slide and then when it got heated, she complained about the use of a sexist insult used in a relatively genderless way (by a woman towards another in an argument about something unrelated to gender/sex. Still bad, but not super sexist). If she'd just not moderated at all that would be different (still kind of bad, but more morally neutral), but that was a double standard which sent a very bad message.

Also, it was clear that someone was offended by the anti-semitism, and the person who said it had the chance to say "oops, I didn't mean it that way, sorry" etc and they didn't.

Now we don't KNOW that shayheyred would have apologised if a Palestinian had complained but we don't know they wouldn't either. There's still space for a Palestinian POV to be heard, and no strong sign it wouldn't be.

Jewish voices, on the other hand, were actively silenced in the act of defending themselves against anti-semitism.

So it's not symmetrical. And I definitely think you can create a space which is unsafe for both blatant anti-semitism and anti-palestinian sentiments. It might not be the most comfortable space for palestinians or jews since chances are members of both groups would occasionally have to be pulled back into line (as would everyone else), but "safe" is not the same as "comfortable".

I agree that there's always going to be ambiguity, things which one group considers a reasonable opinion and another bigotry and vice versa. But that doesn't mean there's no benefit in drawing a line against the unambiguous stuff and trying to deal with everything else consistently and as fairly as possible on a case by case basis.