Every tragedy is an opportunity to expand empathy.
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If someone is riled up and mad about Renee Nicole Good, say "GOOD. You should be." And then tell them who else you are mourning. Tell them about the other lights that have been extinguished. & that is why we have to fucking act. Because people keep dying.
I am not saying don't tell people what's been happening. I am saying that when you DO tell them, make it about how WE have all decided that these fucking pointless deaths have to stop, & make them feel like they are part of that "we".
Basically it's just improv: we need to "yes AND" this shit.
Yes, she shouldn't have died, AND no one else should either. Now would you care to help obstruct the fash?
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Basically it's just improv: we need to "yes AND" this shit.
Yes, she shouldn't have died, AND no one else should either. Now would you care to help obstruct the fash?
Don't talk to people in a way that just assumes they won't care about something: TELL THEM that they care.
Frankly, maybe it's a psychological dirty trick, but sometimes it literally just helps to talk to someone like they are obviously already on the same page with you.
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Just look at it from the radicalization & recruiting perspective: if you want people on your side, it will probably be more effective to talk to them like you expect they will feel similarly to you than it is to start off with the suggestion that you are in conflict with them.
What people feel for one person, they can feel for other people too. And everyone should be outraged at state violence.
I am not opposed to correcting people. I came out of right wing fundamentalism. I've had to be corrected a lot. It's not fun to be on the receiving end, but sometimes you gotta correct people.
You do NOT gotta correct people for getting outraged by a murder committed by government thugs, though. So IF your goal is to make an ally of this person, you don't want that to be the energy you're giving.
The energy is "NOW you're getting it! LET'S GOOOOOO!" (and then you beat up some Nazis together)
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Don't talk to people in a way that just assumes they won't care about something: TELL THEM that they care.
Frankly, maybe it's a psychological dirty trick, but sometimes it literally just helps to talk to someone like they are obviously already on the same page with you.
Just look at it from the radicalization & recruiting perspective: if you want people on your side, it will probably be more effective to talk to them like you expect they will feel similarly to you than it is to start off with the suggestion that you are in conflict with them.
What people feel for one person, they can feel for other people too. And everyone should be outraged at state violence.
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Every tragedy is an opportunity to expand empathy.
The fash need people numb. We need them awake. They normalize State violence. We have to work so hard to make it still feel *abnormal* in our minds.
If someone's crying for Renee Good, don't respond with "oh you care about this, but not THIS?"
Instead sympathize & bring up that other example that was on the tip of your tongue as a tragedy that has the same root. Help them associate what they feel about this injustice with the big picture.
@artemis Fully agree.
i hate "oh you care about this, but not THIS?" it's condescending and self righteous. And it is a pretty sure way to demotivate people to do anything.
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@artemis Fully agree.
i hate "oh you care about this, but not THIS?" it's condescending and self righteous. And it is a pretty sure way to demotivate people to do anything.
@artemis Oh, and it's #Whataboutism too - a strategy to distract people and wear them down. I hate it with a PASSION!
PS: A single human cannot care about everything - our spoons are limited. Everyone does what they can. Our shared Diversity is beautiful and strength!
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@artemis Oh, and it's #Whataboutism too - a strategy to distract people and wear them down. I hate it with a PASSION!
PS: A single human cannot care about everything - our spoons are limited. Everyone does what they can. Our shared Diversity is beautiful and strength!
Indeed, but not all whattaboutism are equal.
There's one to show hypocrisy. "You accuse A of doing this horrible thing, but what about this similar thing you do that is 10x worse".
There's one to deflect the blame. "You accuse me of doing this horrible thing, but what about that not so nice thing that is in no way related, relevant nor equivalent that you do?"
And there's the pointless pedantic one: "You say you care about B, but what about C, D, E?"
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@artemis Oh, and it's #Whataboutism too - a strategy to distract people and wear them down. I hate it with a PASSION!
PS: A single human cannot care about everything - our spoons are limited. Everyone does what they can. Our shared Diversity is beautiful and strength!
@monkee @artemis yeah one of my most intentional Internet habits is to follow people who care deeply about things I don't care much about but think is generally correct, both so I can hear what I sound like to people who don't care about my issues and so I can learn about those issues and be motivated in that direction when I have space and spoons.
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I don't know about you, but sometimes the gaslighting kind of gets to me & I think "maybe living in a police state is just kind of normal. Everyone around me is acting like it is."
The point of reminding people that it HAS BEEN like this for a long, long time is to get them to understand how NOT OKAY it is, not to get them to see it as normal.
We want everyone to grieve EVERY unnecessary death, not to stop grieving any of them.
A friend of mine keeps pointing out the various police officials who have been speaking out and objecting to this as a "bad shooting" and I'm like, what, unlike the thousands of shootings of unarmed fleeing people that were happening BEFORE this big ICE fiasco? Now we're supposed to think regular cops are the good guys, just because the feds sent out someone even worse?
If all this newly fomenting outrage gets funneled down into "thank heavens once we get rid of ICE we can get back to normal, lalala" my brain is going to implode.
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A friend of mine keeps pointing out the various police officials who have been speaking out and objecting to this as a "bad shooting" and I'm like, what, unlike the thousands of shootings of unarmed fleeing people that were happening BEFORE this big ICE fiasco? Now we're supposed to think regular cops are the good guys, just because the feds sent out someone even worse?
If all this newly fomenting outrage gets funneled down into "thank heavens once we get rid of ICE we can get back to normal, lalala" my brain is going to implode.
@violetmadder @artemis
A B O L I T I O N -
P Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary shared this topic
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I am not opposed to correcting people. I came out of right wing fundamentalism. I've had to be corrected a lot. It's not fun to be on the receiving end, but sometimes you gotta correct people.
You do NOT gotta correct people for getting outraged by a murder committed by government thugs, though. So IF your goal is to make an ally of this person, you don't want that to be the energy you're giving.
The energy is "NOW you're getting it! LET'S GOOOOOO!" (and then you beat up some Nazis together)
@artemis
Black activism *especially* seems to have this problem IME. One gets the sense that Black people don't *reeeaaally* want white allies, because they assume that every single white person is an enthusiastic racist ready and eager to backstab them deep down.1/2
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@artemis
Black activism *especially* seems to have this problem IME. One gets the sense that Black people don't *reeeaaally* want white allies, because they assume that every single white person is an enthusiastic racist ready and eager to backstab them deep down.1/2
@artemis
Having been on the wrong end of exactly the sort of counterproductive shaming you're talking about when I got upset at the possibility that a particular statistic about the 2016 election, paired with my roommate's generally left-leaning family being so big, made it seemed inevitable for one of them to secretly be a traitor... well, I could very easily see how someone of lesser moral fiber would be tempted to go Nazi after that.2/2
