Why Anti-Oppression Is Serious Business

[neo_prodigy]

Regarding the comment thread from yesterday, I felt it was important to post the following.

ETA: "Because this community is meant to be as safe a space for everyone as we can make it and there has been proof of a certain way of thinking that is harmful please read and consider these things that will help make scans_daily the best it can be.

We want to reiterate that this post wasn't intended to further chastise or berate psychopathicus_rex personally. As has been stated, the situation was a reminder that anyone is capable of being discriminatory, even when the intent isn't there. Hopefully it serves to make us all aware that an off-handed comment from a position of privilege can be still be hurtful and remind us that we have a diverse community here and for us all to be aware of that."


Hat tip to shemale for sharing this.

For those of you who wonder why anti-oppression is such serious business, it's because for too many of us, the following is a harsh, disturbing, reality.

Warning: Potentially triggering for survivors of assault and abuse.

I can say that hate crime has always been a part of my life and earlier life.

I was beaten by family, in their attempt to beat it out of me.
I was beaten every year at school, every year--it never failed, i got beat up.
And it was because of my gender expression.

But for me, though, the one thing that really stands out for me, as an adult, was here in MARTA. I was coming home from work, and it was a late night, in retail sometimes you have to stay really late at night, and it looked like i was catching the last train around one, one-thirty in the morning.

I was waiting for the last train on the east-bound platform, and a little group of men came up behind me. Now i immediately got nervous, and was like "okayyyy i don't know what their motives are" just in general, you know they looked kind of shifty.

What happened, one of the gentlemen, i guess he found me attractive. So he was trying to approach me to talk to me. Now, keep in mind that he had no problem in the conversation that we had, i was just like "i'm good, i'm in a relationship, i'm okay." And he was just like, you know, he was insistent.

And one of his friends, i guess, felt the need to clue him into the fact that i'm transgender. And he became embarrassed, i guess because he felt like i had publicly duped him. Now keep in mind that i'm rejecting him the whole time!

Then he started screaming things at me on the platform, you know, "you faggot, you tried to trick me" and i'm like "mmmm no i didn't, i'm not interested."

Of course, you know, any kind of crazy, you try to avoid the situation, so i walked away to the other end of the platform. Now keep in mind, i ordinarily would've just left the platform altogether, but i'm thinking this may be the last train and i gotta get on. So i move to the other end of the platform and the young man proceeds to follow me up the platform. Now keep in mind his entire entourage is with him, and i'm just trying to avoid the situation getting worse.

No one, by the way, on the train or on the platform offered to help or tried to tell them to leave me alone; as a matter of fact, people are kind of chuckling.

So the train comes and i faked him out, i went on the train ran out the other door ran back down and tried to get back on. I try to find a seat; it's actually kind of crowded. I was trying to find a seat and i hear the driver say "please don't hold the doors, stop holding the doors, the train cannot move while you're holding the doors". What it actually was, was his friends holding the door for him so he could find me.

I ran like three cars up, i'm thinking i've avoided the situation, i'm good, and he follows me through, along the train, and comes on the train. Now he's running behind me and i don't see him, and then the people around me are like "behind you look out!"

And i turned around and he'd turned his rings around, and he slaps me in the face as hard as he could.

Now he hit me hard enough to where i actually hit the side of the train window, because i was standing. And he left marks in my face, i had ring marks in my face.

Now, the horrible part of it was that i got attacked, but the thing that really sticks out most to me is that, what happened on the train is people began to laugh. No one offered me any assistance, no one said "oh my god are you okay;" people began to laugh.

So in shame, i left the train because i'm like "okay, what am i gonna do." I think, first thing, that i need to call the police. Now i'm thinking that, as the train does finally pull off, that okay, he's accomplished what he wanted to accomplish, i'm good.

As i'm dialing 911 he's coming up the platform toward me. And i'm like "oh god oh god." So i'm talking to the police and i'm making it clear at the payphone that i'm talking to the police and i'm like "yes, i'm reporting an incident and he's walking towards me, he's a black male" and, you know, i'm describing him. And he hears me on the phone, and i guess he gets scared and he runs, it's cool. But i'm talking through the phone and they referred me to the MARTA police.

The MARTA police finally came... Now, i've just gotten attacked, i got laughed at on the train, so a cop comes up. Initially, he's concerned for my well-being. He's like "are you okay ma'am, deh deh-deh deh-deh." So then, out of the blue, he goes "well can i see some ID?"

And i'm like "okay" so i show him my ID. Now keep in mind that this was before i was able to get my name changed and all that stuff, and he goes "oh my god you're a man." And i'm like "noooo, i used to be, but you know not really." And he's like "well um so what did you do to get slapped?" His whole approach changed: "So what did you do to deserve it? Are you sure you weren't trying to hit on him? 'Cause i know i'd knock you out if you were trying to hit on me." Officer, MARTA police officer. And i'm like "no, no sir," and he starts laughing, he thinks it's funny.

Now this female police officer who's with him, she's consoling me she's like "okay, please ignore him, he's ignorant, we're going to file a report". So i'm walking back to the MARTA police station, and this officer thinks it's hilarious, so he proceeds to talk to every man on the platform on the way there: "Are you the one who slapped him? Are you the one who slapped him?" And he's cracking up like it's just so funny to him.

Now i don't know what radio calls were made between the time that he initially met up with me and the time that we got to the station, but when we got to the station all the officers stared at me, and they bust out laughing at me again. Now these are the officers.

And the officer that trapped me, he goes: "before i search you do you have any weapons?" And i'm like "why are you searching me? I'm just here to file a report." He's like, "well any time you come to the police precinct we have the right to search you." And i'm like "um well there is a knife" [laughter] "there is a knife in my purse, but i did not pull it when the man attacked me, it was just there."

So then they get an even bigger smile; only in Atlanta does the victim become the perpetrator, and they just think this is so funny. So he actually threatened to take me to jail because i had a knife.

So they put me in a low holding area and i'm waiting thinking "oh my god i can't believe i just got attacked and now i'm going to go to jail;" i was just completely flabbergasted by it. But in any case, the woman police officer comes in and she goes, "i'm sorry, i'm so sorry you're going through this," and she goes "i want you to file a report of every thing that's going on, and i'm going to take it." No one else had offered to take my report. So she gives me a piece of paper, and i write down everything that had happened all the way up to that second. And she has tears in her eyes, and she's like "i'm so sorry, i can't imagine what you're going through i'm so sorry."

So, hate crimes are those things that, when someone is attacked for being in a perceived group--and that night i was perceived as trans, gay, whatever, and because of that i was attacked, and no one at any point, on the train, on the platform, from the officer, at the precinct, no one offered to help. And that is a hate crime. And i'm here tonight to let you know it happens; it happened here on campus; my friend Annette was attacked here, verbally attacked on this campus and they threatened to shoot her.

And we need to understand that it's borne out of ignorance, and it's condoned by people who have a problem with our lifestyles and they think that it's okay to hurt us.

And at the end of the day, what we do should have no effect on other people. and i think if we leave people alone, to each his own, a lot of this stuff will be avoided.

 
ETA: Links to Read:

-shemale's summary
- Check my what? On privilege and what we can do about it
- The privilege of politeness
- What I learned about tone
- kagome654's reply.
- bean_montag discusses tone argument and the burden of education
- Two-parter! jelly_ace and greenmask discuss how to react when called out

Comments

[theanswer]

The same could be said about the offensive post made by psycho_rex.

[neo_prodigy]

Difference is that he's breaking the guidelines unlike this post which is encouraged in our efforts to combat bigotry and oppression.

[lakrids404]

Do you really feel that with this post, that you are combating bigotry and oppression? And do you think, that the tone of your replies would convert any to your point of view?

[neo_prodigy]

Absolutely. As others mentioned, they were grateful to be reminded that there is a human being behind the struggles against transphobia.

[kingrockwell]

Part of combating bigotry and oppression is education. That was the purpose of this post. That some people are so resistant to that doesn't often inspire the friendliest tones.

[lakrids404]

The only thing I would ask for then, is more education less combating.

[schmevil]

What are you looking for? As I said to someone downthread, honest question. I'm not trying to set you up here.

In the linked thread, I provided the member in question with some resources and said that I would be available to him, should he want more material, or discuss the issues at hand. In this post Neo_Prodigy provided a video (and transcript) that is meant to put a human face on the kinds of resources we link members to.

So is your objection that we're not doing enough educating?

Or is it that in concert with educating, mods and members also combating?

[lakrids404]

I have been member in some time both from Scans Daily 1.0 to now. Generally speaking am I glad for the active moderations here at 3.0. So I feel a some emotional investment in the forum. And I could of course just stay away from the controversy. But I felt uncomfortable when I saw psychopathicus_rex got browbeat with the "Resources (Anti-Oppression and Etiquette)" surrender was not option.

If you you moderators think it's good idea, to educate the members. You can of course just do it. But It should not really not surprise you, if members react to perceived large change in how Scans_Daily are run. If there have not been any discussion of it first, my mistake if there have missed.

Neo-Prodigy feels understandably really strongly about this. Perhaps to strong to be a moderator at this post. But you could close of the educational posts for comments, if you don't want dissenting opinion.I am just afraid that educational posts, will unnecessarily politicize the community.

Personally was I aware, of some of the problems that community transgender have. As I have followed Rozk livejournal for years

[skalja]

This community was founded as a women-friendly, slash-friendly, queer-friendly comm -- we're not forcing an attitude that was never there, although I think the mod team has been gradually working to improve sensitivity towards minority issues both on an administrative and community-wide level.

Linking to the resources section is not an attempt to get people to shut up or surrender; it's gentle suggestion that the commenter may be missing important background context to the discussion.

[halialkers]

Yes. "Transphobia" is a clinical-sounding abstraction. This puts a human face to the struggle and clarifies that not only is it real, but it can be potentially (and actually for people like Brandon Teena) life-threatening when expressed. On a community which is one of the most inclusive sci-fi communities I've seen online, reminders like this are well within the boundaries of what is allowable for community moderators. I've seen people abuse their powers for making things soapboxes. That's not what's happening either here or NoScans.

[schmevil]

Thank you halialkers!

[halialkers]

Oh, yes....and the particular administrators I'm thinking of were the kind of people who'd ban people who disagreed with them. If this discussion had been had at that forum, I could probably state that several people would have been banned. You guys are expressing a reasonable means of discussion here, which if I may say, I deeply appreciate.

Especially since I've had a tendency to de-rail this kind of post before on NoScans so I do have a reason to appreciate the reasonableness and not "I ban you because you don't have the proper tone" kind of administration I saw on that particular Godzilla forum.

[neuhallidae]

When someone feels that they can't enjoy a fandom without being reminded that there are people even in their fandom who buy into the bullshit that they're trying to escape from, that's not fair to them, as fellow members of the community. And whining that the community isn't the place to discuss how its members are being treated is fucked up. You can scroll past a post that you feel is unnecessary. That's because you're not being smacked in the face with the fact that someone you thought you were talking to as an equal has just said the same offensive thing that you've heard all your life.

If you weren't so goddamn focused on intentionally being disingenuous (as I've noticed you tend to do multiple times when ever this kind of serious shit comes up), maybe you could actually see that.

[theanswer]

You shouldn't make assumptions about a person you don't know.

I'm a paraplegic and I've handled all of the wheelchair and cripple jokes that come from issues with Barbara Gordon and other characters quite well, and trust me... there are plenty of those jokes in this community. So don't tell me that I don't get smacked in the face by offensive things I've heard all of my life when you don't even know me.

[cleome45]

There were "wheelchair and cripple jokes" in those threads? :(

[theanswer]

I don't know about those threads, but those kind of jokes are common with the characters. I don't make a fuss though until someone assumes I don't know what it's like to read something offensive about the kind of person I am.

[cleome45]

Thing is, if you wanted to write about ableism in pop entertainment and the like on this board --"make a fuss," that is-- I'm thinking you'd find support for such writing. Even from people like me who barely know diddly about such issues.

Obviously, I'm not saying you MUST do this. Nor is it my place to say you or anyone MUST do this. But isn't it good to know that you could if you ever felt the desire to?

[theanswer]

Not really no. To be honest the jokes are so common for those characters that I've just avoid them posts concerning them whenever possible, or at least make a comment and then leave it be.

[cleome45]

Well, if you ever change your mind...

Meantime, all I can tell you is that strategies that work for you don't necessarily work for everyone else. We've all got our deal-breakers, and constantly trying to work one's way around them in silence is never going to work for everyone. Sometimes for some people, Yes. All the time for everyone, No.

[theanswer]

Asking the community to stop making cripple jokes about those characters just seems like a futile effort from my point of view. I'm not saying no one should cause an uproar, more power to them. I just can't be bothered to be that person because I don't personally think anything will come from it. Maybe for a while the jokes will stop, but the anonymity of the Internet means you cannot see what kind of person you're talking to so eventually someone will say something stupid, nobody will fight back, and more people will join in.

[valtyr]

If offensive and ableist posts/comments are made, the community rules endorse and encourage calling them out or reporting them, because it is not appropriate and against the rules to be ableist.

Just because you do not utilize the anti-oppression tools the moderators provide (and it is your right not to do so) does not mean others who use those tools are wrong to do so.

[theanswer]

Stop putting words in my posts. I did not say, nor was I suggesting that it was wrong for them to do so.

[valtyr]

This post, and the making of it, are anti-oppression tools, and you have suggested it was wrong to post it.

The very act of making a post about transphobia and oppression acts to tell transpeople that this community is theirs too, and the community mods make effort to ensure they are not abused and discriminated against here.

[neuhallidae]

You're right. I apologize profusely for making those assumptions, as that was insensitive of me. However, I will not apologize for being angry that you apparently still see fit to derail conversation about others who have been made uncomfortable in this fandom, and have done so repeatedly.

[theanswer]

I was never my intention to derail the conversation. Like I said in response to another mod post, had my original question been answered more tactfully instead of being met with aggression then there wouldn't have been a problem. A different mod actually answered my question indirectly and I agreed with the reasoning they provided.