My Problems with the Tumblr Social Justice Culture
…In this culture, instead of using the words ‘stupid,’ or ‘asshole,’ or ‘jerk,’ for people that we vehemently disagree with and wish to put down, we use ‘bigot.’ And ‘ableist.’ And ‘privileged.’ They have become slurs. They have lost meaning for now being generalized insults that people use to cut down others. You don’t like a particular internet group? It must be because you see them as mentally ill. Bigot. Ableist. Oppressor. You don’t agree that I, an asexual, suffer the same indignities as queer people do in daily life? You’re trying to silence me. Bigot. Oppressor. You called me stupid? Bigot. Check your privilege.
What I have witnessed is a circle of people that are waiting to feel self-righteous and attack other people, because getting mad feels good. And don’t you dare pretend to me that this isn’t it, because I have participated in it. Getting mad at someone for their bigoted bullshit feels awesome. It feels righteous. You feel like you’re helping your cause for cutting other people down to size on the internet, when in actuality all you’re doing is shouting at someone who is learning nothing. Or, in more common scenarios, already knows. And in your reblogs, your own followers that your target may not necessarily know join the circular beat-down to feel awesome and righteous about themselves. And it goes on. And on. And social justice advocates eat other social justice advocates alive forever, in a sick incestuous circle and it keeps happening. And it accomplishes nothing. You are not actually fighting oppression like this.
We have misappropriated the word oppression. We have misappropriated the word privileged. We have misappropriated the word trigger, which infuriates me so much I can’t even describe. Something that you don’t like looking at is not a trigger. Something that hurts your feelings is not a trigger. It’s a word that has a very specific meaning, and you have demolished it. People no longer understand when I profess to being triggered by rape and non-con. Shaking. Crying. Flashbacks. Involuntary vomiting. I unfollow people when they post about it. It’s not personal. I’m not trying to hurt anyone’s feelings. But they will get snitty and passive-aggressive about it because they do not understand what I am trying to communicate with the word trigger. Fucking stop misusing it. Fucking stop.
It’s a vicious and toxic environment and I am tired of participating in it and I’m tired of seeing it on my dash. I am tired of people that need to be victimized and am tired of people who point fingers at everyone as victimizing them. I’m tired of misappropriation of social justice terms.
[Post edited for brevity. Bolded emphasis mine.]
This is exactly why they lost me: the Social Justice Warriors who are ever vigilant for any way to feel victimized on behalf of any minority social group, especially ones to which they don’t even belong. Most often being white and middle class, it’s like they’re trying to burn off their own privilege by straight up bullying someone else for theirs.
Language and its use really are significant but intent is just as important as word choice. Too often people are villified and their lives disregarded entirely (like the time I, who have physical and cognitive impairments, was accused of being an ableist who wants to sexually molest mentally handicapped people) because they didn’t follow some strict vocabulary determined by some arbitrary gaggle of disillusioned youth who desperately want to belong to something larger than themselves. Trying to bully people into thinking the way you do is not how you make the world a better place.
The misappropriation of social justice terms is also just out of hand. It demeans the struggles and traumas of real sufferers (like the time I saw someone who is not chronically ill nor a trauma survivor throw a hissy because they didn’t have the “spoons” to be “triggered” by some one disagreeing with them). It’s a bunch of people who took a first semester Sociology 101 class diluting otherwise very valid terms. Someone isn’t an ableist because of the use of one word. You aren’t triggered by something just because it pisses you off. You’re not being anyone’s “advocate” by vicariously playing the victim; you’re self-servedly seeking justification for the indignation you feel at the world for whatever reason. You’re already a special little snowflake so, really, just knock it off.
This perfectly sums up my problems with the tumblr community at large.
It’s like a circle jerk of “justice.” It’s really messy and only serves to make you and those in the circle feel good.
So arguments like these make me pretty uncomfortable. I’ll try to explain why.
It’s not that these posts don’t contain legitimate points. There are some people on Tumblr who have misappropriated social justice terminology in service of identities that are clearly not oppressed on the level of people of color, women, LGBT people, etc. There are some people who use accusations of one -ism to derail discussions of other -isms that they don’t experience, often ignoring that their targets also experience the first -ism (e.g. black women called out for using “bitch” while discussing racism). Social justice–style criticism can be misused and can end up shutting down important discussion; I’m not denying that. But I think these posts are more harmful than they are helpful.
• These posts are full of unwarranted generalizations. The first post purports to apply to all of “Tumblr social justice culture.” Blaitzen suggests that when Tumblr users tell people to check their privilege, or criticize them for using oppressive language, it’s always about how good it feels to get mad; they know this because they’ve done it. Which… really? Maybe that could have been a legitimate argument applied to specific people and situations, but applied this generally it’s absurd. How you acted and felt when you used to engage in social justice–style criticism does not actually give you psychic insight into the motivations of everyone who ever has. Meanwhile, when people do criticize others’ actions for entirely legitimate oppression-related reasons—which, I promise you, is far from rare—memes like this make it less likely that they will be heard.
• “Stop shouting and teach! You’re not accomplishing anything!” Yeah, that’s a tone argument. Marginalized people are not obligated to teach anyone anything. They are not obligated to be nice and palatable to people they feel are perpetuating their oppression, even if all those people did was use a word they didn’t realize was wrong. They are not obligated to accomplish anything. This is pretty basic. But also, you don’t actually even know that they’re not accomplishing anything. I, a white person, have learned a metric assload about racism from people of color on Tumblr who were “shouting” at people. Because they made excellent points, no matter if they were being mean and snarky and unforgiving and calling people oppressors and bigots and doing all those things people say are so horrible. If I’d said “Well I never!” and clicked away in a righteous (funny how two can play at that game) huff, I would have missed a ton of learning experiences. Tone arguments aren’t just messed up on principle—they actually inhibit the learning they claim to value by encouraging people to ignore or give less weight to perfectly good arguments because they don’t meet some nebulous and often unattainable standard of propriety.
And if you’re thinking, “But this isn’t aimed at them, it’s aimed at [some specific people I’m thinking of who really are being jerks for no real reason or aren’t really marginalized or are derailing]”… You may be right about those specific people. But remember, this post is addressing the entire “Tumblr social justice culture.” It is not careful about who it applies to. Which brings me to my next point…
• This post is so broad that most of it could be cosigned by pretty much anyone. Including actual bigots. Seriously. If I were, say, a vicious transphobe and I just wanted people to stop giving me shit about it, I’d probably be pretty happy with this post. Some of its points are more or less straight from the bigot handbook; for example, probably pretty much all the people reblogging this who identify as feminists have been told at some point by a misogynist that they just enjoy being offended. It’s bullshit, right? Let me be clear: I’m not saying the authors of these posts or everyone agreeing with them are bigots. I’m saying that the fact that there’s little here objectionable to bigots should give us pause. Because arguments like this can and will be used against whatever cause you care about. And not just by outright bigots, either. Because this post is so general, people will see in it what they want to see. They’ll read it and think, “I don’t do these things, but this is such a great takedown of Group X!” Your group? Is someone’s Group X. I’m not gonna suggest that if it weren’t for this post you would have been great allies and skipped off into the sunset leaving a trail of rainbows and bunnies or anything, but you know, it sure isn’t helping.Reblogging because some great points got made, especially in light of how so many Black women and Black queer/trans* folks on Tumblr get targets for particularly vitriolic shit like death threats and rape threats.
