Taking responsibility for the spaces I create

[sqbr]

I really like synecdochic's "comfort the disturbed, disturb the comfortable" is not just a bumper sticker for me. The only passage which threw me and I still have trouble coming to terms with is

7.1. When I do speak in the online sphere, I should take responsibility for controlling any resulting conversation that occurs in any space I have control of, to ensure that the conversation does not cause others pain. If I don't have the time or the spoons to exercise that moderation, I should not allow conversation. I should not allow a conversation I begin to be used to hurt others.

Because while I aim for this, my health is far too unpredictable for me to ever be able to guarantee it. I've done what I can by creating the comment policy here to help people realise what not to say in advance, but that's not foolproof and this isn't the only place I initiate conversations.

And this does cause genuine hurt to others, and it is my responsibility. For example, in my most recent post to debunkingwhite¹ I wasn't feeling up to much conversation, but decided that some links I'd found were worth posting and it didn't look like anyone else was going to do it. Posting links is usually pretty safe: there isn't the danger of saying something inadvertently hurtful, and there usually isn't that much of a response.

But someone started trouble in the comments and said a bunch of offensively racist crap. I eventually decided, and said, that they weren't going to listen to reason and I didn't have the energy to argue with them any more. A POC who was also arguing with them called me out on it (though I think they were more annoyed at all the other white people who said nothing at all) and since I had started the conversation I decided it really was my responsibility to deal with it, so I did. This was very difficult and tiring, though, and I ended up having to wait several days between some of my replies to build up enough mental energy.

I could have asked the mods to intervene, but that still feels pretty irresponsible, I can't just go around saying things that cause trouble and expecting other people to clean up after me. And on my own journals (and some communities, though none of them are prone to much conversation) I am the moderator.

I could simply stop posting about "tricky" concepts all together, or at least in public. But: I don't know if this is just my arrogance, but I feel like on the whole my posts do more good than harm, I've certainly gotten a lot of positive feedback on debunkingwhite about the links I post (I make some effort to record stuff that happens in Australia, though I miss a lot) And also I would, no ablist hyperbole implied, go mad if I couldn't talk about gender and race and all that stuff somewhere. I guess i could do it under lock but I'd rather not.

There's also conversations like this on other people's journals:

Me: *tangent likely to create discussion*
Commenters: *Problematic replies*
Me: OOps, sick now, got to go!
OP: Man, now I have to deal with this!

Commenter: *Problematic reply*
Me: That's problematic.
Commenter: Why?
Me: Oops, sick now, got to go!
Commenter: Oddly enough I don't find that very convincing.
OP: Man, now I have to deal with this!

(And similarly if the OP says something problematic)

And again: as much as this causes trouble, I think me not calling people out on their problematic statements would be overall worse.

And there's times when the replies I get aren't problematic, my original post or comment is, and I'm not up to processing people's criticisms fast enough to deal with the resulting conversation let alone for general politeness. If someone doesn't know me, me taking a week to reply seems pretty darn rude. Not to mention I'll spend that week obsessing about it because I freak out at criticism. This is a major reason I'm really uncomfortable with the idea of disabling comments on any of my entries.

Something it's important to note: synecdochic is chronically ill herself. I'd ask her how she balances these problems but she deliberately didn't allow comments on the entry.

I think a lot of this would be helped by me gaining abetter feel for how well I'm feeling, so I avoid the "Oh crap, in retrospect I wasn't feeling well and this is full of crap and now everyone is talking about it and I can't deal with it" phenomenon. But there really is no way to be totally safe, especially since people can comment on things well after I post them.

So, I'm not sure I've described what I wanted to say properly and I'm pretty sure I missed some stuff, but my brain is mush, as always, and this is something I needed to get off my chest. I am very interested to her people's replies but, well, all the stuff I just said applies.

EDIT: naraht suggests comment screening, which while not a universal solution could I think be really useful for some situations.

Acouple of things from the first draft of this post which I realised didn't make it into the final one. I may edit these in more seamlessly tomorrow or whenever I'm up to editing:

I have trouble concentrating on writing or reading for extended periods², and have unpredictable bad periods when I'm not up to much beyond reading my email and maybe replying to really basic enquiries.

I've seen people pull the "I'm disabled (or having a bad day or you remind me of my father, or whatever), so I can't help it if my behaviour is hurtful, and if you criticise me you're just a big meanie" card, and I do not want to be that person.

When it comes to stuff like race where I have privilege my first reaction to any given situation is often pretty screwed up and I have to think carefully to avoid saying something hurtful and dumb... but I have trouble thinking carefully.

Every time my health takes a dip I go through a period where I end up accidentally offending a whole heap of people before my "You probably shouldn't say this" alarm recalibrates.

I've used disclaimers but there's only so much they can do.

EDIT: I posted about it at debunkingwhite: Digging at racism with no spoons and got some really helpful responses.

1)Which I haven't linked to avoid the "absent-mindedly click on a link and say whatever pops into your head" phenomenon. You can find it pretty easily if you're interested but I'd really rather you didn't get involved or start defending my honour against the Mean POC or anything.
2)Which obviously doesn't stop me from writing long posts, it just stops me thinking about it too hard when I do :)

Comments

[naraht]

Hmm. Might one solution be to change your journal settings when you make a controversial post, so that all comments are screened? (I think you can do this.) That way you could unscreen problematic posts only when you felt ready to deal with them. It would cut down on conversation but also on the chance that anything would blow out of control while you were gone.

[sqbr]

That never occurred to me! Hmm. *ponders*

Though it's no applicable under all circumstances, that could be useful. I'll certainly keep it in mind for future posts here, and the advantage of having a comments policy is that people have less of an excuse for being all "But how was I supposed to know it was inappropriate??"

[sanguinity]

Screening is very useful for posts where you anticipate trouble and/or you need to control the pace of the conversation.

However, I don't see that solving the DBW problem. I dunno, but a white OP screening comments there might look like a strategy for controlling/limiting criticism of the poster?

My perception of the DBW problem is a different -- I seldom realize there has been an issue until the mod chastizes us for letting POC do the heavy lifting. Then I'm all "What?" and have to go see if I can figure out what she's talking about. F'rex, when I commented on that post, wotstheusername hadn't done anything yet. I suppose my take-away is that I should be keeping a close eye on the comm, as close and suspicious an eye as if I was a mod.

Which is why I wish there was a bat-signal on that comm. Where you could comment, "I don't have the spoons to take on the brunt of your fail, but I DO have the spoons to hit the bat-signal button." (Except really? The POC members of the comm would still arrive faster, and more vigorously, than the white members. You'd still have POC doing the heavy lifting.)

[rainbow]

Syne does say "in any space I have control of" -- if you're in control of that community, can you add more mods to help when you're not up to it?

If that's not your community, then maybe the solution is to post only when you have a few extra spoons, just in case, and when you see something problematic, state why it is at the same time you say it is, and only do so when you have enough spoons.

I do empathise, because I have very few spoons of my own most days.

[sami]

I think that's why I don't get involved in comms much. Just the recent attention drawn by my posting about MammothFail can be disconcerting - there've been a few comments posted to my own entries that get a little bit to the point of "... I can't deal with this", but fortunately for the most part it's restricted to one guy I concluded wasn't willing to make the conceptual link that's so clear to everyone else, and it was his fail, not mine. For the most part the responses have been good or something I can deal with.

I think maybe tehre's a differnece between "oops, sick now, going to ignore you forever" and "oops, sick now, I'll get back to you when I can"?

[sqbr]

However, I don't see that solving the DBW problem. I dunno, but a white OP screening comments there might look like a strategy for controlling/limiting criticism of the poster?

Oh absolutely. And beyond "look like": while I like to think I wouldn't silence criticism, I have no such confidence in some of the other posters there. It works for deadbrowalking (also a DBW :)) but they have MUCH stricter entrance requirements and are aimed at POC.

I think in this case your responsibilities as a random member who didn't make the post and didn't see the problematic comments are different from mine as the OP, since if nothing else I get notified of all the comments. But I agree that you can't rely on the OP to take the whole burden all the time, ie what if the OP is a POC?

I think a batsignal could be useful sometimes, especially if you know you don't know enough to argue with someone effectively (ie me with someone talking about specifically American concerns) But I agree, it could end up being very problematic in it's own way, and people could use it to avoid taking responsibility for conversations they started.

[sqbr]

Oh, the communities I'm a moderator of (all webcomics related :)) have so far not had any conversations of this type at all, and are incredibly low maintenance, so it's a hypothetical worry.

If that's not your community, then maybe the solution is to post only when you have a few extra spoons, just in case, and when you see something problematic, state why it is at the same time you say it is, and only do so when you have enough spoons.

That's what I try and do, but sometimes it turns out that I either misjudged my spoons, or the situation spirals into a spoon swallowing mess :( I think I'm just not going to post to places I can't control so much, it's all too fraught.

[sqbr]

Yes, I wondered how all the attention was affecting your own Spooniness. (That's the price you pay for being so awesome :)) I think I may avoid communities myself, but it's sad making because I liked getting that wider variety of opinions.

I think maybe tehre's a differnece between "oops, sick now, going to ignore you forever" and "oops, sick now, I'll get back to you when I can"?

Yes, but if the person doesn't know me they can look pretty similar, especially since often in my absence someone else says what I was going to so I don't really get back to them, except to say "What they said". And sometimes so much time has passed it feels awkward to come back, the conversation is dead and they presumably don't care any more. I may be misjudging there though.

[rainbow]

*nod* I know what you mean. I hardly every have enough spoons, so I'm pretty careful about only posting where people know me and my health issues and understand that if I say I can't engage right now, trying to force me to isn't going to make me magically better and I won't do it.

[sanguinity]

I paused before typing DBW, and decided that yes, the context was clear enough that I could use it. But nooooo, now you had to bring in deadbrowalking. ;-)

I agree that random-member and OP have somewhat different responsibilities on a given post, but I'm not sure I agree that the differences are as huge as all that. Assuming the original post was sound (which isn't a trivial assumption, I acknowledge), the OP basically gets timely notification of what comments are being made, and that's it. (On DBW you're not going to use your other OP powers, such as freezing threads. I don't think. That opens the same can of worms as screening posts.)

I dunno. I'm still not convinced that I shouldn't be watching older posts more closely, to at least see if comment-counts are ballooning. (Although "ballooning" itself is kinda late in the game -- someone is already getting schooled, and has been for a while.)

[sanguinity]

I paused before typing DBW to that yes, the context was clear enough that I could use it. But nooooo, now you had to bring in deadbrowalking. ;-)

I agree that random-member and OP have somewhat different responsibilities on a given post, but I'm not sure I agree that the differences are as huge as all that. Assuming the original post was sound (which isn't a trivial assumption, I acknowledge), the OP gets timely notification of what comments are being made, and that's it. (On DBW you're not going to use your other OP powers, such as freezing threads. I don't think. That would the same can of worms as screening comments.)

Which brings me back to: it seems I should be keeping a tab for DBW open in my browser, and when I'm online take a scan down the comm for ballooning thread counts every once in a while. Of course, "ballooning" means I would already be late to the game, but...

A DBW lurker

[(Anonymous)]

Hi,

I know what you mean about spoons and such, as I have a disability also. What I do is track every post that I start or comment in, over on LJ. I don't know if you can do that here, but doing this helps me A LOT, in that I can see any bad reactions and hopefully head them off.

Hope that helps.

http://chipmunk-planet.livejournal.com

[zeborah]

I think the screening really helped on my recent post about 13th Child. There were three broad kinds of comments:

a) those that (I felt) were 'safe' or close to - which I could unscreen as soon as I saw them
b) those that were exhibiting some common kind of Fail - which I wouldn't want to have up there without a reply to counteract them; so I'd compose a reply and then unscreen. Towards the end of the week this started taking longer. :-)
c) one which I never unscreened but took it to email instead, at which its author (a friend) agreed that it shouldn't have been written.

It did slow down the conversation for everyone. In the circumstances, this was very much a feature rather than a bug.

[sqbr]

On DBW you're not going to use your other OP powers, such as freezing threads

Agreed.

Which brings me back to: it seems I should be keeping a tab for DBW open in my browser, and when I'm online take a scan down the comm for ballooning thread counts every once in a while.

Heh. It would be very easy for me to say "Yes! You should! Of course I haven't got the spoons for that.." :)

[sqbr]

It did slow down the conversation for everyone. In the circumstances, this was very much a feature rather than a bug.

*nods*

Re: A DBW lurker

[sqbr]

...you know, I don't know if you can track posts like that, I think you can. But I don't comment or post much on DW beyond my journal anyway, most of that stuff is still in lj.

Anyway, thanks for the thought, I'll consider it.

Also, along those lines: if you end up commenting on dreamwidths in the future it might be worth validating an email address for an OpenID account, that way you get comment notifications.

[ex_peasant441]

I've been thinking about this all day, so I reckon that makes it a great post :)

OK, current thoughts:

One of the main principles of the 'system' of social justice you seem to follow is that in any particular cause the 'owners' of that cause are the disadvantaged people in question, and hence they, and they alone, get to make the rules.

Now, you, as a chronically ill/disabled person, have limitations on your life, and you either need other people to make allowances for those limitations or you are suffering from their discrimination. In this case, the limitations are that you can't always reply to comments, or not reply swiftly or as comprehensively as you would wish. And that is not something you are making up as an excuse, it is a very real and genuine fact of your life. It is also an unpredictable one - especially at your stage of the illness you have no actual means of knowing in advance if you will or will not have the spoons tomorrow to deal with any possible consequences of your actions.

So, we put these two facts together and what do we get?

When you are posting about an issue where you happen to have privilege, you are entering the space of the unprivileged people in question. This is true whether you are posting on a community, someone else's journal, or even on your own - it is still 'their' cause, so they make the rules and all you need to do is find out what those rules are. If those rules accommodate your needs as a disabled person, well and good and smiles and drinks all round. If they do not then all you can do is leave their space. Yelling and screaming that they are a bunch of ableist bastards if you so chose, but the fact remains - their house: their rules.

What you should not do is try to stay and accommodate yourself to rules that you are physically incapable of meeting, or stay and try to pretend that you are accommodating yourself when you in fact can't. Because that really is causing problems both for yourself, by risking your health and sense of self worth, and for them, by being yet another idiot who won't obey their rules in their own space.

But first step - find out what the rules actually are. And this means the rules as they will apply to you, not the rules that Synecdochic is writing for her own personal use. If you don't want to come straight out and ask (and it can be horrible asking for help or admitting weakness, plus as I understand it some groups have rules about not asking questions) then find out in a sneaky roundabout fashion - but do take the time to find out.

[sqbr]

Yes and no. If a situation is more difficult/exclusionary for disabled people than it has to be, then it is ableist, and if something is ableist then it immediately becomes the "cause" of disabled people. POC (and white people!) don't get to be ableist (or sexist or whatever) while fighting racism, the same way that feminists and disability advocates aren't allowed to be racist (and this is something large sections of the feminist movement still have trouble with, interpreting any criticism as "an attack from the Patriarchy").

Of course I also don't get to be racist while criticising POC for being ableist. Navigating these competing priorities is difficult, but the best way to get a less one-sided POV is to talk/listen to people in both boats, in this case disabled POC.

This still ends up back to what you said: asking POC and other anti-racists. Which I did, I posted to debunkingwhite and got some very helpful and understanding responses. Specifically, some people volunteered to be available if I have to say "I can't deal with comments to this, but someone needs to".

[ex_peasant441]

I was rather assuming that would be the case as regards debunkingwhite, because I would not expect them to be hypocritical, and there are plenty of possible solutions if people pull together and agree on them.

However, this raises an interesting theoretical question. What if you had asked and the answer had been no? What if you met a group whose response was that they had enough problems already and didn't want to deal with the extra burden of coping with the problems caused by an ally? You say that people don't get to be Xist while fighting Yism, but what if they want to be? Does that automatically negate their cause for you? Are you only supportive of social justice for people who are themselves trying to be inclusive - or do bigots also get your support if they are suffering inequality? (I'm not going to spell out any examples, because I don't want to cause a diversionary row about any specific cases, but I'm sure a little thought on anyone's part will bring a few readily to mind.)

[sqbr]

That is a difficult situation. And I think we hit stuff like that all the time, ie every time an election comes around ("Do I vote for candidate X who does Y I like but is terrible on issue Z? Or candidate A who is bad on Y but pro-active on Z?") I think it's important not to be totally dogmatic in the pursuit of your agenda, and sometimes compromise is necessary because everyone is flawed.

Does that automatically negate their cause for you? ...do bigots also get your support if they are suffering inequality?

No and yes. I don't think it's right to totally boycott an entire social justice movement or organisation on issue X because it does poorly on issue Y unless there is an alternative, the support of which would do just as much for X without doing so badly on Y. And this is definitely a situation where I would follow the lead of people in the intersection. The important thing is to not set up a false dichotomy: in this case, POC and disabled are not mutually exclusive terms, and pursuing the rights of one, done properly, should benefit the rights of the other, not work against them.

In the made up example you give (since I agree, real life ones are by definition fraught) I would probably complain, and see what if any actions disabled POC were suggesting, and if there was a less ableist group pursuing the same goals join that instead. The thing is: either the disabled POC are on my side or they're not, so it either ends up being "POC vs white person" or "Ablebodied people against disabled people". (If there happened not to BE any disabled POC in the discussion, or their opinions were divided that would be more complicated) And in this sort of situation what I think often happens is that the disabled POC would say "Ok, no, disabled people should have access, this community is ableist and we need to fix that. But I think it still overall does good and we shouldn't let ourselves be totally distracted from fighting racism while also fighting ableism."

I'm..not sure I got my point across there, but if I try any harder I think it'll just get longer rather than more clear :)

[ex_peasant441]

(see disclaimer on previous comment regarding tiredness)

I think your point came across clearly. A summary of what I am hearing would be: In theory you would accept discriminatory behaviour from a group if you thought their cause was good enough, but in reality there is nearly always an alternative so you don't have to.

I think this may be one of the fundamental differences between us as people, and the reason why you can become an ally and why I can't - I would not and am not willing to make compromises like that. If I don't like the rules a group are setting I will try to get them to change the rules or I will walk away. Hmm, what an interesting discovery.

[sqbr]

If I don't like the rules a group are setting I will try to get them to change the rules or I will walk away. Hmm, what an interesting discovery.

That is interesting, and yes I'd say it's a significant difference. It's also mixed up with the fact that I'm simply not always very good at standing up for what I believe in when it involved creating conflict :/