quicksilver-ink:

That awkward moment when you think you’re having a conversation with another person inside Social Justice communities about some of the more problematic aspects of said communities (eg, white people going over-the-top about Using Chopstics Is Appropriation to show off their ally cred), but the other person thinks you’re an outsider criticizing social justice in general… and then takes it as an opportunity to complain about Those Kids And Their Pronouns These Days.

Upon further reflection, I think that That Awkward Moment and Others Like It are Made Possible By The Following Sponsors

(a) SJ is not a monolith, and the boundaries are not clear. Different people in SJ has different focuses and different levels of education on various subjects, and different people often adhere to some pretty strongly different paradigms, and it’s impossible to be an expert in everything. Privilege is blinding, and all of us will fuck up either our advocacy or ally-hood sometimes because we’re human.

(b) People outside SJ and people inside SJ will criticize similar things, but for totally different reasons.

For example: I complain about white people who try to prove their Ally Cred by being assholes about things like chopsticks, because (a) they’re being assholes and getting a high on self-righteousness*, and more importantly (b) it drowns out the voices of actual people in the possibly-appropriated cultures, and © also makes harder for people to have discussions about more nuanced issues, like under what circumstances is white USians practicing Yoga appropriation and when is it not**.

People who position themselves outside the SJ movement will complain about the chopstick thing as a typical exemplar of Social Justice movements in general – those people and their complaints of “cultural appropriation”, lol.

* I do realize there’s a certain amount of circularity to my complaint here. Important question: how does one differentiate among “I am making a legitimate complaint”, “I am frustrated and venting”, and “I’m getting the self-righteousness high by criticizing other people” in one’s own behaviors?



** So apparently there is a thing called Broga, which is meant to be Yoga for cishet guys who need to have it rebranded with a more masculine name so that no one thinks they’re gay for doing it.