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Input on thread title appropriateness for rabble 2
May 15, 2012 - 3:08pm
and countin
hmph...issues everywhere 'bout thread titles.
latest one is the word "dirty" in front of Zionism. i have to admit it's a trigger word for me. too many times the words "dirty lil'indian" past by my ears. not 'bout me as i don't look "Indian" but to me 'bout my cousins and general conversations when i was young. not so much now 'cause PC has stopped it. it's a internalized self-perception by many of my family and friends. Canadian colonial oppressors have used it for generations to dehumanize us.
see ing the words of the oppresors being used against other oppressors and war crminals i just don't know how to feel about its use here in thread titles. is using oppressor language a thing we want to do here? or is the word use applicable? why is there so much strength in the use of "dirty"? i really don't get it.
should we "Indians" be using it towards Canadian "colonizers" as in "dirty colonizers"? how would peeps here fell about being referred to as that? 'cause the colonizers history here in Canada at the basic level is no fuckin better than Israeli colonizers. colonizers here did it on a bigger scale even IMV. hell colonizers here are still doin it.
Ah, good. I was worrying we didn't have enough threads on this major issue of our times.
Unionist, you know that I like you, but your post #2 typifies silencing behaviour towards someone trying to open up, in good faith, a discussion about inclusivity and mutual respect. If you don't think this conversation is worth having, there are non-silencing, non-bullying ways of expressing that.
Sorry. Bad habit of mine.
I believe this discussion, among progressive folks, has no prospect of any positive outcome. I think it promises division, not unity. I think it provides welcome pretexts to our common enemies to caricature us and encourage interested folks who may be leaning in our direction to dismiss us. I think it bespeaks the luxury of musing about words - unnecessary words - when in real life all around us people are in action and desperately need to find ways to build solidarity, to sympathize with the struggles of others as the only sure way of reinforcing and bolstering support for their own struggles. I believe it doesn't serve our interests to make a very big deal, one way or the other, about terminology of this kind. I believe that if some of us say they're offended by some terminology, then the rest of us should simply avoid using it as a matter of civility and solidarity - unless, of course, there's something real and demonstrable at the heart of it.
You'll note that I use the word "we" and "us" throughout the previous paragraph. That's because of my working assumption - the one that underlies my participation in this discussion forum over the years, and indeed most of what I do in life - that there really is such a thing as "us". If, contrary to my fervent conviction and hope, I'm wrong about that, then by all means, have at each other. But then why are we here?
t'anks catchfire. but really the harm is done and not lessened by the little chastizement.
all i can say is guess i will go back to my corner "dirty lil Indian" that I am. how could i dare want to have a say 'bout something i think is important.
eta:
unionist your 1st words and your acknowlegement speaking like that to others is habit give lie to your 2 words of inclusion and usness.
anyway back what you think is important
etaa
'cause i can't be vicious and divisive in kind
I agree with this.
There needs to be scope for all such conversations here, so that at the very least we might better recognize when solidarity as a gesture is being extended and sought. The polemic style often employed in our discussions, along with the typical framing of what's suitable to bring forward, doesn't exactly lend themselves out in that regard.
I'm sorry you feel that's what I'm saying. Just thought I'd correct you - I wasn't. I did notice that this is part 2 of a thread on this topic, and my opinion is that no good will come from this conversation. I'm entitled to that opinion, without being accused of what you just said above.
This is not what solidarity looks like.
Gee, two whole threads! No other subject matter has ever had that before! Generally we get everything resolved after the one.
Darn right. Solidarity is people standing side by side in the same workplace, school, street, trench, facing the same enemy, with the same goal, no matter who they are, or where they come from. This isn't utopia. It happens every day. And it doesn't happen because people erase all their differences. It happens because people have no choice.
And when it doesn't happen - everybody loses. Everybody.
Oh by the bye, babble policy forbids ironic racism.
This makes sense to me. This would have been a useful second post. But instead you shit on someone who is raising something quite reasonable and heartfelt, then cry victim when you hear how your shitting made them feel. And now, it's time for your inevitable high-horse routine.
In the past, you've finally come around to acknowledging how your behaviour might have helped drive a marginalized person off this board. Perhaps you'll come around again. Meanwhile, the dynamic that does the driving continues.
[This is Slumberjack's cue to tell me it's all my fault.]
It's racism when a colonizer tries to silence a First Nations person.
Stay strong quizzical.
This is a disturbing but important conversation.
I can't and wouldn't pretend to understand what it is to be a person whose language, culture and entire community has been colonized, for the past several hundred years, by the ignorant, arrogant and greedy. At least, not in the way that indigenous people do. I've experienced abuse and loss, but in a very different context.
I think the only thing I can say is that we need to listen to each other, but especially those of us who belong to the privileged culture. Those of us who belong to the "dominating" race/culture have a piss poor record of listening and learning, and the personal ego wrapped up in that makes it all the more difficult (not for us colonists but for those who suffer under our unlawful jurisdiction).
What I'd really like to see here is an openess to information, an attempt to understand alien experiences, "Other" in the words of Simone, and to discourage the shutting down of dialogue. I think this is what Catchfire was looking to do, and I think writer has it right -- this is an issue, a place, where judgement in ignorance needs to be refuted.
I'm very open to differing opinion and learning, though I don't feel it is the responsibility of colonized peoples to explain their experience.
t'anks for correcting me. am sure i needed it.
and am sure most colonizers didn't and don't want to hurt those they're colonizing either. they did and they're still. the world over.
being part 2 is only for broad title continuity in case someone wanted it for another thread title mishap discussion. putting the 2 together as 1 is tangental. and barely. eta; on 2nd thought it's become more similar though.
i don't think i accused you of anything. plz point out what accusation came from me to you. maybe if i know what it is i accused you of i would apologize.
i know you accused me of being divisive and pointless. i know you silenced me. maybe not right now but you can be damn sure i'll think twice 'bout starting another thread i am interested in talking 'bout and reacting to. if you make a habit of doing it as you say you do you must know how successful it is too. we humans seldom continue behaviour that's not rewarded. or when we don't get the result we wanted from it.
i think i asked some good questions. see post 2. i still really want to know or maybe understand any perspectives on just what i asked if someone might wanna provide one now ahole bunch of silencing crap happened.
We're like the Israeli settler, perched atop our hill, except instead of 60 years and counting it's for five hundred years, surveying as far as the eye can see at all the facts on the ground, shaking our heads with a 'sorry about that' grimace, while gesturing with our hands toward everything and saying 'whattya going to do.' When the term dirty is flung around, with its unmistakable triggers and everything else, we're really only wielding the caked on muck of own existence on this continent. You can't build a wider sense of community and hope to put effect to it, which truly is the last and only hope for everyone under the circumstances, while failing to grasp the common origin of what has been instilled by the prevailing culture, which is derived from patriarchy and imperialism. There are the personal failings in this struggle there's no doubt about that, in addition to the monstrous systemic issues needing everyone's shoulder set against it.
+1000!
Quizzical's opening post brilliantly pointed out why the word 'dirty' ought never to be applied to any group of human beings, ever, and why we ought to respect the feelings of indigenous and other poc on this and other similar matters.
Solidarity would have been to empahsize this central point, and would have led this thread to a verry different point than where it is now.
What other adjectives should be avoided?
Thanks for starting this thread, quizzical.
To respond to quizzical's OP, I think we should avoid using trigger words as much as possible.
It's a relevant question, Maysie. quizzical is objecting to the use of the word "dirty" to describe someone because it's a trigger word. Caissia just noted that all trigger words should be avoided.
So, what other adjectives should be avoided?
Those which fellow babblers tell us our trigger words, Sven.
So, if a babbler were to say, "The word 'fuck' is a trigger word for me," then no one should use it here any more?
See?
He's ignorable.
As much as possible.