gotta admit i've had nothing but bad experiences regarding social justice people but the way you keep your cool and focus on calmly explaining your point of view using facts is pretty admirable and is making me a lot more open to your ideas

the-young-and-the-breastless:

ecosynchronous: timemachineyeah: Everything about this response is perfect. I wish I had thought to say these things when sent similar messages myself. bless this post. This actually kind of pisses me off. Take the fucking compliment. My fucking god. NOT EVERY GOD DAMN THING ON TUMBLR IS MEANT TO HURT YOUR PRECIOUS FEELINGS.

I genuinely find it laughable that anyone could consider that a genuine compliment, even for a nanosecond.

It’s not even structured like a compliment.

Take another look:

gotta admit i’ve had nothing but bad experiences regarding social justice people but the way you keep your cool and focus on calmly explaining your point of view using facts is pretty admirable and is making me a lot more open to your ideas

I mean, seriously? Everything that follows, “I’ve had some bad experiences with people I have decided are like you in some way”, is a calculated insult to anyone who basically isn’t me.

“You’re on of the good ones” is not a compliment.

It’s the exact same structure as a statement like this one:

I’ve had nothing but bad experiences with people from your neighborhood, but the way you talk makes it seem like you actually went to college. You’re so well-spoken, I bet you read a lot of books. I find the way you’ve never been arrested pretty admirable. You’re actually trying to be a productive citizen of society, it makes me a lot more open to the idea of hiring you.

This is literally definitive of a backhanded compliment.

A backhanded compliment may fool the listener, but the compliment remains “backhanded” because the speaker is being intentionally slighting and insulting. In some cultures, backhanded compliments are considered a genteel or polite way of expressing disdain. Examples of backhanded compliments include the following. “You’re smarter than you look.”

“You drive very well, for a woman.”

“I didn’t recognize you; you look so good.”

Here’s another perspective from psychologytoday.com, on the purpose of backhanded compliments.

8. “You’ve Done so Well for Someone with Your Education Level.”

The backhanded compliment is the ultimate socially acceptable means by which the passive aggressive person insults you to your core. If anyone has ever told you, “Don’t worry-you can still get braces even at your age” or “There are a lot of men out there who like plump women,” chances are you know how much “joy” a passive aggressive compliment can bring. 9. “I Was Only Joking”

Like backhanded compliments, sarcasm is a common tool of a passive aggressive person who expresses his hostility aloud, but in socially acceptable, indirect ways. If you show that you are offended by biting, passive aggressive sarcasm, the hostile joke teller plays up his role as victim, asking, “Can’t you take a joke?”



10. “Why Are You Getting So Upset?”

The passive aggressive person is a master at maintaining his calm and feigning shock when others, worn down by his indirect hostility, blow up in anger. In fact, he takes pleasure out of setting others up to lose their cool and then questioning their “overreactions.”

Huh! Let’s take a look at that little message one more time:

gotta admit i’ve had nothing but bad experiences regarding social justice people but the way you keep your cool and focus on calmly explaining your point of view using facts is pretty admirable and is making me a lot more open to your ideas

And regardless of malicious intent, it’s damning with faint praise.

Do I really need to link people to an explanation of the concept “to damn with faint praise”?

medievalpoc: Since you’re so willing to grace one of Those PeopleTM your super valuable opinion on Those PeopleTM, I’ll share a secret with you. You’re my #1 least favorite type of person in the universe. I’ll take a raving bigot any day over an insidious purveyor of backhanded compliment-slinging “You’re not like those OTHER [marginalized group of people], you’re admirable and use facts and keep cool and caaaaalm.” The main information conveyed to me by this message is: 1. That you have said or done things that have caused harm to marginalized people or witnessed such an incident 2. and instead of listening, being respectful, and starting to consider other people’s well-being, mental health, and physical survival and how you (yes, you!) can positively or negative affect that 3. You decided that “social justice types” are (to use the opposite words to the ones you’ve just used to describe me) angry, unfocused, not-calm, do not explain, do not use facts, are unworthy of admiration, and these things cause you to close your tender ears to their “ideas”. In other words, you’ve just said a lot about you, and really nothing about anyone else. This is far from the first message like this I’ve gotten, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Not to mention that there are plenty who are firmly of the opinion that I am, in fact, none of the things you claim that I am. If you really think that I’m so starved for approval that I would accept and become implicit in the dehumanizing insult you’ve just levied at countless other bloggers who you deem “social justice types”, you’ve got an entirely other thing coming. As I’ve just said, diversity of perspectives is important to show, and now you’ve shown yours: that marginalized people are only worthy of your precious openness to their “ideas” if they behave toward you in the manner you feel entitled to. I engage this material emotionally, passionately, excitedly, angrily, openly, happily, and with great joy. All you really want from sending this message is to use my supposed credibility to undermine people you dislike, or that you believe shouldn’t be allowed to speak to you in a certain manner. I am not your “social justice” buddy you can use as a bludgeon on a pedestal in an attempt to make other people, who you perceive to be of a “type” with me, behave. Shame on you. The concept can be found in the work of the Hellenistic sophist and philosopher, Favorinus (c. 110 AD), who observed that faint and half-hearted praise was more harmful than loud and persistent abuse.

Here’s another source for that.

In short, backhanded compliments and faint praise do nothing but inform the person you’re speaking to just how low their opinion and expectations of you were, based on stereotypes and biases they hold against people they perceive as “like” you, or of a similar grouping.

It’s a form of insult and aggression, and anyone who thinks that that kind of “compliment” is genuine just shows that they share the same biases as the original asker.

And as a last piece of context, this kind of “compliment”, along with those who reinforce the false idea that “it’s a compliment, you should be GRATEFUL”, is one of the most common ways to police and silence those who face discrimination.