Date: 2020-07-04 06:11 pm (UTC)
labingi: (Default)
From: [personal profile] labingi
(This got long. Sorry. Deep thoughts!)

Those are all really good points, and I agree with all of them overall. I think you and I are addressing two different time scales. And that might be part of the overall cognitive dissonance I feel about a lot in this age. It may be that I'm interpreting discussions about now as discussions about timeless ontological judgment. Thank you for that thought.

I totally agree that saying, "But JKR is awesome" in the context of an ongoing discussion about harm her transphobia is doing is problematic. I agree the dominant effect of such a move would be to derail a discussion about harm to trans people and, thus, perpetuate and deepen it. And I agree that in the context of that discussion, framing is very important: "She's transphobic but awesome" reads very differently from "She's awesome but transphobic." These are all things that matter a lot in the context of conversations on Twitter (and probably here as well--though only about 7 people read my DW) in response to her recent statements and their impact.

I wasn't intending, however, to talk about how to phrase things in a conversation about certain current issue. I was talking more broadly--across the course of a lifetime, say--about the question of whether there is a moral necessity of condemning a human being for having harmful views/actions, and I'd argue, at least in most cases, there's not. I was talking mostly about how one feels more than speaks, though the legitimacy of speaking one's feelings was implicit.

But if a piece of your point is that I should be more careful here (or commenting on YouTube) about not derailing equity conversations, I will gratefully take that onboard, though I think the issue is extremely complex. I think often it boils down to: what helps with one issue harms somewhere else and those helps and harms are entangled and tend to boomerang back on each other. Ex. Hard condemnation of JKR's attitudes supports trans people (helpful) but deepens our current tendency toward anger, judgment, and condemnation in general (harmful, in my view), and that heightened anger, in turn, deepens a transphobic backlash (harmful). But not condemning her views hard trivializes the oppression of trans people (harmful), while potentially promoting nuance and tolerance for humans in general (helpful), yet can be read (or meant) not as nuance but as supporting transphobia (harmful), and so on.

As to silence and privilege, I agree, but I'm not sure--I'm really not sure--how much speaking out about any given issue should be considered a civic/moral duty. There 500 billion issues in the world today. No one can speak to all of them. For myself, I'm not a Harry Potter fan. I don't really care about JKR, and I, thus, don't feel a need to wade into this particular discussion to show I support trans people. I would hope I can show that in other ways, like creating an inclusive environment for my trans students, striving to write good trans characters (as I hope to in the novel I'm working on now), etc. OTOH, I did/do feel a duty to address BLM: that seems such a huge, pervasive American thing. And then again, what do we mean by "speak out"? Does it mean everyone has a duty to be on social media or attend a demonstration? Is it enough to talk about with family and friends...?

In very broad strokes, I like the idea that in doing good in the world people should play to their strengths. I don't go to demonstrations because it would be a huge energy drain in exchange for my being mostly invisible. I try to do more with writing/reason, especially in my work environment these days, because writing and reason come easier to me. And if someone is a quiet, non-confrontational person whose main contribution is being kind to the people they meet, I'm inclined to think that's okay. It takes all kinds.
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