Direction of Community

[Gortle me a Gortle]

Sandal Fury wrote:

I thought I had a decent idea of what a "dog whistle" is. Now apparently the definition includes idioms with checkered pasts (i.e. "grandfathered in" or "rule of thumb"), …

Rule of Thumb has a folk mythology regarding how a man may beat his wife

that is not the actual origin of that phrase
to be clear, it did not originally have any discriminate origin
it’s origin is use of ‘common knowledge over specific measurements’; that is, how one might do things in the everyday life vs how they do it in their profession

on the other hand, Grandfathered In has a very clear and undeniably racist origin
and while I cannot speak to anything but the experiences I’ve experienced or observed, the place I work has clear policies about dog whistling and Grandfathered In is included therein
the fact that people consider this dog whistle phrase as innocuous - or not even a dog whistle today - shows how pervasive this type of ‘under the radar’ sliding has become
there are two main ‘priorities’ to dog whistles
- bad actors calling out to other bad actors using code
- bad actors trying to infiltrate the populace and get them to use (that is, often repeat) the dog whistling
so what’s up with that second one?
it not only normalizes coded hate speech, it also gives the haters a way of recruiting because when they see someone using such phrasing’s or memes or … they know that person was open to mimicking the hate speech and might share the hater’s views, so they try to lure them from using ‘Grandfathered In’ to having a ‘chat’ about ‘in my granddaddy’s day …’ to joining, oh, I don’t know, some sort of rally while carrying a tiki torch or something

as always, your mileage may vary
which is why being an inclusive society requires some self regulation (a level of minor activity which many dislike even having to consider doing, let alone doing - they’ll waste more time & energy railing about why they aren’t being exclusive or why they should be allowed to be such or … than it would take if they self educated and acted upon their new learnings)

[Gortle me a Gortle]

here is a story I am sure some, or even many, have heard a variation of
so a handful-ish of years back while I’m on the road, I end up in a lil mom&pop restaurant/bar
you know, a local joint, not a chain, a place where every customer counts because the bottom line is tight but hey, they like owning a place of their own and such
not in the countryside yet in a place near a major urban center which has grown to where this place is more like on an outer edge of a suburb than in a lil town surrounded by farmland

I’m sitting there nursing my beer before I go crash for the night when the door opens, I look over and see a kid (ok, young adult) in a leather jacket and punkish haircut
I do not think anything about it
the meal I just had was delicious and very reasonably priced, we’re not far from the metropolitan area so I figure the guy knows good food and is getting some

a moment later I hear the proprietress telling him to get out of her establishment and the proprietor stepping out from the kitchen ready to back her up
the dude leaves

next time she’s nearby, I ask, “what was that all about?”

paraphrasing here wrote:

you didn’t see the front of his jacket or the shirt he had on open for all to see - a bunch of hate symbols and other BS

you see, that’s how it starts, they send one of the more polite, cleaner cut peeps to a place; then a few nights later he’s there with another friend, also friendly enough, then the next time, it’s 3 or 4 and they sit at the bar chatting, nothing overtly awful yet ready to engage with anyone over hearing what they say
then their numbers grow, their talk ain’t so polite, the initial friendly ones have been sent off to the next place to do the same and you’re sitting there wondering
How in the world did my establishment become a hangout and recruitment place for haters and extremists?
had that happen to too many
most closed down and we all cried about it

so yeah, of course I kicked his stupid backside out
that is not gonna happen on my watch

haters spreading hate?

It is subtle
It is pervasive
It is wrong
and being the tolerant type of society I live in, it’s very easy to get caught up in ‘well, they are not so bad’ and unintentionally end up
Tolerating the Intolerant
until the intolerant become so pervasive you are keeping your mouth shut because those folks ain’t gonna tolerate you the way you did them

[Kobold Catgirl]

Cori Marie wrote:

I think the point of bringing up "grandfathered in" was to show that something that started as a dog whistle (because that's what it was when the phrase was coined) can become a common part of the vernacular if you're not vigilant about not allowing the dog whistles to fester.

Yeah, this is how I see it. A dogwhistle is useless if it's at such a high registry not even bats can hear it, so I'm not going to consider "grandfathered in" a dogwhistle. I would like "dogwhistle" to continue to mean "he wants to say ____ so he's saying ---- instead, knowing that only his buddies and the targeted group will know what he means".

Anyways, back on topic, I read Vasemir's post to see if there was anything interesting to respond to, but there wasn't. I do not consider "tribalism" to be a problem when the tribe is as broad as "caring about the rights of queer people to feel safe on the forums".

[MadScientistWorking]

Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:

Do you think that the community is headed in the right direction and if not, what are you planning to do about it?

Wait this just dawned on me but was this directed at the community in general?

[Cori Marie]

Wow, it's almost like I made this exact same argument yesterday. It is not the job of the marginalized to teach you why things are hurtful. You have the internet and the ability to google. If you don't then I don't know how you got onto a forum.

[Andy Brown]

Sussy_Shroom wrote:

When someone points me in the direction of something inappropriate and inflammatory, I believe them.

The problem here is that the really inappropriate stuff (and the people posting it) was removed a while back (before your first post on the boards), so it's a bit difficult to show it to you. Which is convenient for your decision to ignore the people who have been targeted by it

[thejeff]

Sussy_Shroom wrote:

Cori Marie wrote:

Wow, it's almost like I made this exact same argument yesterday. It is not the job of the marginalized to teach you why things are hurtful. You have the internet and the ability to google. If you don't then I don't know how you got onto a forum.

I think this is a very perplexing stance, in practice but not in principle.

It's obviously true that you do not have that burden. However, I feel like it's ultimately unhelpful.

For example, let's say you have someone who is some pernicious type of '-ist'.

If this person is set against another person who belongs to the category they don't like tells them they need to educate themselves why would they listen?

I mean it sounds to me like you're telling your enemy not just to surrender but to defeat themselves.

The "enemy" isn't going to listen whether you tell them to educate themselves or try to educate them yourself. And trying to educate someone who's not going to listen, but who is going to drag it out and seize every opportunity to make you look bad is exhausting. Especially when it's on a topic that's essentially defending your very existence.

When they're not your enemy, sometimes it's worth going to the effort, but it's still not your burden, precisely because it is a burden and one that marginalized people all to often have to bear. Those who aren't the enemy can show it by learning themselves rather than demanding marginalized people do the emotional labor for them.

[Kobold Catgirl]

Y'know, it occurs to me that I think a lot of people think we made this mess when we're actually just reacting. This entire mess has been us reacting to problems and people getting mad that we acknowledged the problems.

[thejeff]

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

Y'know, it occurs to me that I think a lot of people think we made this mess when we're actually just reacting. This entire mess has been us reacting to problems and people getting mad that we acknowledged the problems.

If you'd just keep quiet about the problems then the rest of wouldn't have to acknowledge them.

That's how this works, right? Everything's fine as long as the problems are out of sight.