Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
You see, that's where I find it much easier than you. If I accidentally offend someone that I really didn't mean to, especially if they're in a marginalised group that has had plenty of shit thrown at them for it their whole life, I find it very easy to apologise, back down, maybe try to explain that I didn't mean it the way they read it, but being careful to very clearly restate my apology for the offence I caused afterwards if I do.
You would rather tell them that they were wrong and that you were right, and you're prepared to argue it long and hard. I find that completely unnecessary, because I don't need to win if I didn't mean to beat them in the first place.
I have difficulty backing down in lots of scenarios but accidentally upsetting someone I didn't mean to isn't one of them.
Not how to back down when you didn't mean to upset people, though.
I think you're assuming a lot about what the interaction actually was about, how it happened, and why. And you're assuming that I don't know what being part of a marginalized group that gets constant shit thrown at feels like.
An apology is not in order when the person is making a big deal out of nothing, making shit up, and reframing what's being said to defend imaginary people or abstract ideas. Then add to that malice when things don't go their way. If I had said something about a particular person or something egregious, I would understand, but I said it about a drawing.
You say that because you haven't met the whiteknights in the community who get upset on behalf of others or lose their shit when others don't follow their mental models of gender expression/identity. You know how white people will sometimes cry culture appropriation, and the natives are like, "uh, we're actually ok with that"? Yeah, they exist in the gay world too, and some are vicious and vindictive to the point of being abusive themselves. To me, it sounds like you're defending a Karen.
As I said elsewhere, it would be unusual for a vast number of folk to not contain annoying or argumentative people, but I worry about tarring a whole category by always bringing up examples of bad behaviour and mentioning the category as part of it.
For example: "There was this manager shouting at all the women that they needed to keep in shape to impress the customers, but he was obviously badly unfit and overweight and dressed really shabbily." OK story. But "Fat middle aged guys who don't lift a finger to try to live healthily can be so annoying when they dress badly and then shout at women that they sold keep in shape and to impress clients." Not OK, makes it about the category of people.
But, clearly I wasn't there and I didn't know that you were criticising a drawing!
It sounds like you had a bad experience and whilst I very much don't want to generalise from it, I also don't want to belittle it.
Precisely, so let's not assume things and speak in ways that try to pin it on me. "You should've apologized and backed down" is rewarding their shitty behavior.
I get your point about avoiding generalizations, but I wouldn't call it a category. This is a pattern of behavior from people who think they're standing up for someone or something, but end up being straight-up toxic by taking social justice to extremes. I've even seen it in person, where some asshole crashed our LGBT+ community group because they started accusing another guy of saying something racist when it wasn't the case. It was needless drama all around because someone decided to be the superhero and save imaginary people.